Robin Bowles

Pictured: Rodney Coleman (Moir) in 1945

Her reputation as Australia’s queen of crime has more to do with the release of various non-fiction book titles than with any personal wrongdoings. The former PR consultant turned to a career as an investigative writer in 1996 and is currently working on a new book. Life with her mother wasn’t always rosy but her mother’s passion for social climbing did teach Robin the joy of entertaining, which is now one of her great loves.

My mother was a child of a couple who divorced in 1925, I think, so she was about four or five at the time. It was a very unusual thing, and she lived with her mother – my grandmother – and her grandparents.

They didn’t want her around because she was too young and they all had lives, and my grandmother had to work in ‘a home for retired gentlewomen’ in Lilydale, so they sent her off to be a boarder at St. Catherine’s in Toorak. And so there she was – a weekly boarder in a church school, daughter of divorced parents and her family lived just down the road. She felt very miserable about that. I track my mother’s personality going right back down to that stage. She was very afraid of being rejected, so she became very assertive and selfish. She was very self-centred as well, and a dreadful snob.

She didn’t talk much about that time, but I remember she did tell me that her grandmother gave her a box of biscuits once and she took them to the school but because she was a fat little girl – quite chubby – the nuns took the box away and she wasn’t allowed to have them and she cried. She also told me that if she ever wet the bed, they beat her. The only other thing she said was how difficult it was not having a father and being in a school where all the girls had a father and a mother.

My grandfather was a collector of Australian first edition books. He had a place in in Bridge Road in Richmond, and he used to hold these Friday afternoon drinks and get-togethers and had all sorts of people coming through. I remember my grandmother saying to me that she just got so tired of these ‘ugly bohemian people’ coming every Friday afternoon, putting their dirty boots on her coffee table. I am sure that’s not the reason they split up, but I think that my grandmother, mainly, was always conscious of position and thinking of how people looked at you – that nouveau riche attitude people had in those days if they were becoming social climbers.

My mother didn’t have much to do with her father for years and until I was eleven she’d hardly seen him at all – but then we got to know him quite well.

One of the very early memories of my mother is of me sitting at the kitchen table, being forced to eat my porridge – I hate porridge. My mother was forcing it in my mouth with a spoon and I was spitting it out. In the end, she said: ‘Get down, get out of my sight,’ and I thought I’d got out of it. That was breakfast. Then it was lunch and out came the same porridge, and dinner was the same porridge too. She used to do that quite a bit. She taught me if you like something, eat up and speak up, if you don’t, eat up and shut up.

I was supposed to like my mother – she was my only mother – but I had this conflict all the time about not liking her because she wasn’t always very nice. When I was upset and crying in my room, I’d think: ‘I just want a proper mother,’ because I saw other people and how their mothers behaved and my mother wasn’t like that at all.

Mum probably didn’t want us, but she was mad about Dad. Dad wanted children – I know that, and I know he was probably hoping for a boy, but my mother popped out two girls.

Whenever my mother used to talk about having me, it was always things like: ‘You nearly killed me.’ She said: ‘You were such a big baby and were a breech birth and I had to be in the hospital for days and the nurse dropped a swab on the floor and then she put it on me and I got sick and I nearly died.’ And I should have been Roger, not Robin! It was never a happy story. It always seemed like it was my fault and I’d just been a nuisance to her.

My mother was very interested in my father’s progression in the army and she learned very quickly what an officer’s wife needed do to be a good army wife. She worked hard at that and she was good at it. Everywhere we went, Dad moved up the ladder. He was Captain and then he was promoted to Major and we went to London for four years just after my sister was born, where he worked for MI6.

By the time we came back to Australia, dad was a Colonel and Mum was in her element being the CO’s wife. She did morning teas at home and she made fantastic gem scones with butter – I loved those gem scones – and she’d have drinks parties too. People would come about six and have cocktails and I would pass around olives, wearing a pink nightie. I could read everybody’s rank off their shoulder to offer the olives. At quite an early age, she taught me to eat fruit with a knife and fork, in case I was ever invited to Government House.

Mum held dinner parties where she’d invite people of influence and so I learned that entertaining was good – it was fun and a good way to bring people into your home. That’s one way I am like her. My husband, Clive, and I entertain more than any of our friends we know. We have probably one or two dinner parties or lunch parties a month and then we have people at other times too.

My mother could be so nice and friends coming home from school with me would say: ‘How can you say such horrible things about your mother – she is so lovely.’

But she was such a hypocrite. She would bring on Mrs Gorgeous while people were visiting and then, when people walked out the door, she’d say: ‘Oh God, I can’t stand that woman,’ or: ‘Oh, she’s so common.’ And she’d go on and on about it. I used to say: ‘Why would invite her to your house if you don’t like her?’ And she said: ‘I have to think of your father’s position.’ What she taught me in that little exchange was that I was never going to invite anyone into my house whom I didn’t like.

I had a very conflicted relationship with my mother. My father’s approval was very important to me and my sister – we were both in awe of him – and he expected us to love our mother and be good girls for our mother. He’d often say: ‘How many times do I have to tell you do what your mother tells you?’ It was just this ongoing juggle – wanting to get approval from my father for being nice to my mother but, on the other hand, she was never nice to us. You know, I can’t remember a single time in my whole life that my mother put her arms around me.

There was a big age gap between me and my sister. There were times when we supported each other, but as we got older my sister started playing all those silly games that my mother used to play and so gradually I felt much more on the outside. I’m sure that’s probably to do with a deficiency in my personality, in some ways – I am not blaming them entirely – but I just didn’t feel that I was a part of the family for a long time.

Mum would say that I was clumsy, or I was fat, or even unat­tractive, or I didn’t work hard enough at school. I used to come top in English, and I topped French and history, but because I wasn’t very good at math it dragged down my overall average. So, I’d come home with this report card saying I was first in the class in English, first in French, first in Latin, but fourth in math and Mum would ask: ‘What happened to the math?’

I was very insecure about who I was for many years and, in fact, it’s only since I have been running my own business and certainly since I’ve started writing my own books that I feel that am a worthwhile person. I spent a lot of years thinking: ‘Would Mum get upset if I did this?’ Sometimes I’d do it anyway, to upset her!

Mum was little – five foot one – and my dad was six foot three. She told me this lovely story about when they were out dancing after the war and he had his uniform on. There was this button on the breast with a tank on it, because he was in the Armoured Corps. She’d press into his chest and then when they’d finished dancing she had the imprint of the button on her forehead. I think that was one of the nicest stories my mother ever told me. They loved each other very much.

Their relationship probably didn’t teach me a lot because I’ve been married four times. I never saw their relationship as the ideal relationship. I never saw them as the ideal couple that were meant for each other or anything like that, and my mother was always quite jealous about my father. She loved him, you know, but she was possessive as well.

It was a strange family and made more strange by the fact that we had to move every eighteen months or so because of Dad’s job and start over somewhere else. So my mother would dive into these new communities with great gusto and create another group of women around her, but she never stayed anywhere long enough for people to get to know the real her because suddenly we were on the go again, off somewhere else. I think it suited her. I learned quite a lot about meeting new people from her.

Dad died when he was fifty-six. My mum was two years older than he was, so she was a widow at fifty-eight and she’d lost the person she adored. That was the only time in our whole relationship that I had some genuine admiration for her, because she carried on – she was absolutely devastated by it, but she picked herself up and she went to the Red Cross meetings and National Trust and Ionian Club and she just got on with it.

After a couple years I said to her: ‘Why don’t you go on a cruise, Mum?’ She’d done lots of cruising and at first she didn’t want to go, but I convinced her and off she went. At first I’d get these postcards from her saying: ‘In Greece – last time I was here I was with Daddy,’ and that sort of thing, but she eventually got a taste for travel again and started taking some fantastic trips around the world. It was good for her. I thought she had really fallen but she just picked herself back up and I admired that.

Before Dad died, I was with him in the hospital and he said: ‘I want you to promise you’ll look after your mother.’ I said: ‘Yes Dad, I’ll look after my mother.’ He said: ‘Promise me.’ I said: ‘I promise you.’ So all the interaction I had with my mother after my father died was as a result of that promise I made to him. If he had died without specifically asking me that, I probably would’ve had very little to do with my mother for the rest of my life.

Mum taught me how to sew. That was a good thing. By the time I was sixteen or seventeen I was making all my own clothes. I could see something in a magazine or Vogue pattern book and I could make it and wear it and it was quite professional – I was a good sewer, thanks to her. It gave me a feeling of achievement and it meant I could have clothes that I couldn’t otherwise afford. Mum also taught me how to shop well. She was a great one for a bargain and she always had a real nose for where she might get things cheaply. She’d also walk four blocks to save five cents on a cauliflower and the one she bought would be covered with black spots – so she did also teach me that you get what you pay for.

Mum used to say ‘no’ a lot to us as kids.

‘Can we go to the movies, Mum?’

‘No.’

And you’d ask her why and she’d say: ‘Because I said so.’ So, that’s one thing I learned – I was never going to say no to my children unless I had a really good reason, and if I had a really good reason, I would share that reason with them and I would tell them no means no. But the result is that most times I say yes. I learned from the way she used to make me feel about myself that I always wanted to be nice to my kids, instead of being angry at them and yelling at them. Sometimes it was difficult – at twenty-five I had four kids under the age of five and they were a lot of work.

At one point the kids and I actually went to counselling. Coming home from work I’d often find their school bags out in the hall – I’d trip over them – and I always felt bad that the first thing I’d say when I got home was: ‘What are all these school bags doing in the hall?’ and ‘Put them away!’ Instead of: ‘Hi, darlings.’ I felt terrible about that and I would go into the kitchen and say to myself: ‘I am just like my bloody mother.’ So we went and did some counselling and the counsellor asked the kids: ‘What don’t you like about your mother?’ and they said to her: ‘We don’t like it when she yells at us.’ Then she said to me: ‘What don’t you like about your kids?’ and I said: ‘Well, I am working full-time and all I want them to do is just to put their school bags in their room and put their lunch boxes on the bench – why can’t they do that?’

So we started this thing, which was quite new back then, although a lot of parents do this now, I think – we had the star system. We had a big chart on the wall and they got a star every night if they did their little jobs they’d been set. Things like filling the dog’s water, emptying the dishwasher or setting the table.

That gave me a chance to say: ‘Yes, you can have an ice cream,’ or ‘Yes, you can go on that outing.’ And the reason I did that was because I knew that, otherwise, I might turn into the mother who always yells and the mother who always says ‘no’. It was a very important thing in my life not to turn into that person.

I think Mum was as tough as old boots but, you know, she pretended she wasn’t. She was only very little so when she’d want to get something from the top cupboard, she would say: ‘Oh, it’s such a long way up there – I hope I don’t fall off the ladder.’ Then Daddy would come in and say: ‘I’ll get it for you, darling.’ Or she’d say: ‘Oh, I’m so cold – is there a window open somewhere?’ and of course there was and Dad would get up and shut it.

Mum loved dogs. She always had dogs until towards the end when her last dog died and then she was on her own. I bought her one of those big stuffed Old English sheepdogs – like the ones kids win at fairs – and she used to take him to bed with her. When she died, I said to the funeral directors: ‘I want him sitting at the foot of her coffin.’ And then off it went to the fiery furnace with Mum.

When I became successful as a writer, Mum was very proud and she’d tell people all about me and would introduce me in this sweet little voice: ‘My daughter, Robin – she’s an author.’ But it was too late. The damage was done.

She was really ready to die about two years earlier than she did, but she just couldn’t give in. She was a fighter. Instead of giving up she’d fight some more – it was almost as if she kept coming back from the dead.

When she did die, I went to the funeral directors and I had to choose a coffin, which I had never done before. Of course, they showed me the most expensive ones first and I said: ‘I am not spending lots of money on this coffin – not because my mother hasn’t got a lot of money but because she’d have a fit if she knew that I spent money on something that’s going to be burnt.’

So then he showed me this pine thing but I just couldn’t bury Mum in cheap pine. I ended up choosing a pine one that was mahogany stained.

That was what she was about – appearance, you know. It didn’t really matter if it was pine on the inside, but she wouldn’t want anyone to think that on the outside. Then he said: ‘What would you like your mum to wear?’

I hadn’t thought about that at all and then he asked me if I wanted satin lining.

I said: ‘What would I want that for? She’s not going to lie in it for long.’

She was just a shrivelled up little darling, at that point, but I chose her favourite outfit – a 1970s, quilted leopard-skin jumpsuit, all-in-one, you know, wide legs. It was all pulled and faded because it had been around for so long but she always used to wear that as her favourite outfit so I knew it had to be the leopard-skin jumpsuit.

She also had this Persian lamb fur coat and I didn’t want to inherit that because I knew what they did to the little baby lambs so I gave them that to dress her in as well. I told them to make sure she had her teeth in – she would be mortified to go anywhere without her teeth – and I told them to leave her wedding ring on and all the bracelets that she loved to wear.

Then I got a call from the funeral home saying: ‘You didn’t bring any shoes.’ I told them: ‘Oh, she can have bare feet.’ I mean, she wasn’t going to know the difference.

My sister was furious when she found out I’d put the fur coat with her – she implied I might have stolen it. People get really funny about material possessions at times like that. But it went with her.

My sister came down before the funeral and I said: ‘Would you like me to organise the flowers?’ I knew the flowers Mum loved and I already knew a florist who would do a good job, but my sister said, ‘I want freesias.’ Mum died in March and the florist told me they couldn’t do freesias at that time of year. I told my sister this, but she still said: ‘I want freesias.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘if you want them, you’ll have to organise it yourself.’

I ordered a wreath like Princess Diana had – a wreath of pink roses. Mum loved roses, so I did roses and my sister organised hundreds of freesias to be flown in from Singapore – she had married a millionaire – so there was this grand arrangement of freesias on top of the coffin and then these little pink ones from me.

Dad’s ashes had been scattered in the bay when he died in 1978 and Mum wanted the same – same place – because she thought he might still be down there somewhere. We went out in this boat – my sister and her husband and their twin girls and me and my twin boys and my husband, Clive. We sat at opposite ends of the boat and out we went with the lawyer who had something like a milk carton with Mum’s ashes in it.

When it came time to do the ashes, the lawyer took the lid off and he tipped the ashes off the side of the boat. It was quite windy and as he tipped the ashes over, tossing Mum into the water, my sister said: ‘I don’t see any lumps there – where are the bracelets? Did you take those bracelets, Robin?’ And I told her: ‘I did not take the bracelets – I told the funeral people to keep them on.’

Then my sister said: ‘There seems to be an awful lot of her,’ and because Mum was so little, she said to the lawyer: ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right container?’ And my son, who is a chronic stirrer, said: ‘Oh, don’t worry about it, it’s probably all the bloody freesias.’ So my sister got really upset and she stormed off to the back of the boat, and just then the boat turned around. This gust of wind came up and the last of Mum’s ashes just blew back all over us – in my eyes, in my hair, all over my clothes. Everywhere.

Clive just looked at me and said: ‘She’s going to have the last word isn’t she?’ My sister missed it all because she went to the back of the boat in her tantrum about the freesias and I was left, on this boat in the middle of the sea, brushing Mum off me. Mum would have liked that.