CHAPTER 14

Kindergarten

After my fourth birthday, Mum decides I should go to kindergarten. I don’t want to go. I feel way too young, but Mum feels it will be good for me. ‘It’ll get you out of the house and give me some peace. Besides, you look big for your age. It will just be a half-day at the church hall on Moreland Road.’

It feels a mile away as Mum drags me up the long Cornwall Street hill. They might have been Methodists or Baptists or even Presbyterians at the kindy – Mum didn’t care; she was thrilled to ‘see the back of me’. At kindy I meet lots of new kids and their mothers who really like each other and seem so happy. I realise my family is not like other families, but I pretend we are normal.

Mum agrees to let me take my new motorbike and sidecar to kindy. She is as anxious to show it off to the other mums as I am to show it off to the kids, but getting it up the Cornwall Street hill is a nightmare. I push while mum pulls. The pedals keep catching her leg and even draw blood. She’s red in the face and every now and then we stop so she can give me a good whack over the head. She calls it ‘boxing my ears’ and I wish she wouldn’t.

At the top of the hill, we compose ourselves and I triumphantly ride down Moreland Road with my mother beaming beside me. We sweep graciously through the kindy gates. Everyone is gobsmacked with visible green-with-envy-jealousy. That is the best sort for Mum. Later, she would gloat, ‘The other mums were sick with envy; you could see it on their faces.’ But one struggle with the Cornwall Street hill is enough. I never bothered to ask again.

After kindergarten, my first job is to walk up to the dairy and get a two-pint jug of milk. Laurie isn’t allowed to come with me; his mum says it’s too dangerous for him to cross Albion Street, which is a major bus route. I tell Mum this and she says Laurie is a sook. I’ll be okay if I look both ways before I cross the road. It does worry me that Laurie’s mum says it is so dangerous, but my mum says not to be a sissy. ‘Go and get the bloody milk or I’ll box your bloody ears.’

I realise this is not a good time to ask if I can buy an ice block. The dairy lady makes beaut ice blocks and when Mum’s in a good mood she’ll sometimes let me have one. We don’t have a refrigerator; no-one has this new invention except my rich Catholic grandma. An ice block is pretty special, particularly on a stinking hot Melbourne afternoon. The lady at the dairy makes a range – the basic one is just frozen cordial and it costs a penny and is really good value. It’s usually red. The lady calls that one strawberry. Sometimes it’s green and the lady calls that one lime. Even though they both taste much the same they leave a different colour on your face.

For an extra halfpenny the dairy sells an ice block that has two colours which looks nice. But the really special one costs tuppence and is made of milk, which is much richer than the water ice blocks. Needless to say, that is my favourite, but Mum has to be in a very good mood for me to get one. Usually I am not allowed an ice block at all. ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees,’ she says.

The ice blocks are a summer thing because in the cooler weather we have our milk delivered by the dairyman. He clippety-clops through the suburban night in a two-wheel chariot drawn by a high-stepping horse. The trouble is, in summer the milk goes sour sitting in the sun on our verandah. That’s why I go to the dairy.

I used to bring the milk home in a jug that had a little net on top to keep the flies out. It had beads all round it that clattered as I walked. One day I tripped and fell on the jug, putting a terrible gash in my hand. There’s blood everywhere and I’m half-scared to death. When I get home, Mum is furious. That was her best jug I’ve broken. She’s really cross, and calls me a clumsy oaf. Then she tears a strip off an old sheet, gets the Dettol and rinses my hand under the tap. We kids didn’t need stitches or doctors.

Mum loves modern things and buys an unbreakable billy made out of a new invention called aluminium like they use in aeroplanes. It’s got a good fitting lid and I learn to swing it around in big circles and the milk doesn’t spill. Except one day I bang it on my knee, the lid flies off and milk goes everywhere. When I get home, Mum is furious again. I must agree, I am a stupid idiot.

Another time I’m getting the milk when I realise I badly need to go to the lavatory. I want to do a poo. It is trying to come out and I must look distressed because the dairy lady asks what’s wrong. She says I can use her toilet, but when she takes me there, I am disappointed to see it is an adult’s toilet. At home I use a little potty and there are small toilets at kindergarten.

I am scared I will fall in the big toilet. Who knows what might happen? I might drown or get washed down the hole. I can’t do it. I go back and thank the dairy lady, get my billy of milk and leave for home and don’t even think about an ice block. It’s hard to walk with a two-pint billy at the best of times, but when a huge poo is upon you, the difficulty is enormous. I have the cheeks of my bottom clenched so tight that my ankles are splayed a foot apart. My knees are absolutely locked and I’m walking in a swaying gait like a vaudeville sailor.

I get across Albion Street without getting killed. My concentration is intense. There’s still a quarter mile left to walk, but this turd is insistent. No matter how hard I compress my bottom, it wants to be free. I’m trying my best, I promise. I haven’t used nappies for years. I must hold on. Sweat is breaking out on my forehead, but I know the battle is being lost. I can feel a sticky paste forming between my bum cheeks. They are aching from the compressive strain, tears are rolling down my face and my heart is thumping. I’m passing a house with a big green and yellow hedge.

I sidle inside the gate and in bending to set down the milk, lose the grip on my bowels and begin passing the longest, fattest, smelliest turd in the world. This is not a poo, this is an extraordinary evacuation – something a large adult would marvel at. We boys wore short pants. My mum made mine, and I didn’t have undies. Despite all my efforts, my pants are filling up with poo. Lumps of it are falling down my legs and plopping on my shoes. Some bounce off my knees and smear my woollen socks. And there is this woman standing there watching, absolutely flabbergasted. I don’t know how she got my mother there so quickly. The flies had barely arrived. I had put my mother in rather a spot, but she could hardly beat me senseless with this other woman looking on.