CHAPTER 39

First Long Pants

Only a handful of Xavier boys lived in Melbourne’s western suburbs. Buzz Miller was one. At a time when we were all named after saints, I don’t recall a St Buzz, but I do remember he was a beaut kid and looked out for me at school. The Sanderson brothers lived near Buzz; they were older than us and I looked up to them as seniors. One weekend, Buzz’s dad arranged to drive us to Puckapunyal to visit the elder Sanderson, who was doing army cadet training. Pucka, as we called it, was an army training base during World War II.

Boys all wore short pants in those days. But for some reason my mother decided to buy me my first pair of Long Trousers. Don’t ask me why. Perhaps it was a vanity thing. For her, not me. I was blessedly unaware of vanity, but getting long trousers was a rite of passage, and I didn’t feel ready.

When Buzz and his dad pull up in their expensive car outside our daggy West Brunswick house, I greet them wearing my new Long Pants, with my mother grinning like a bloody Cheshire cat. Even though they’re really rich and we’re really poor, my poor mum, in her addled way, feels she has achieved a social victory because her son – that’s bloody embarrassed me – is standing there in his new long trousers looking a real goose while my mates sort of pretend it’s okay. That I am not one-upping them and being a prize prick. Not that we talked like that. Not little Xavier boys.

The outing was terrific. Buzz’s father admired the lovely watch that Grandma had given me after I made my First Communion. It had a sweep second hand and he suggested that if he drove at a steady 60 miles per hour, I could check his speedometer’s accuracy between the mile posts along the highway. I felt so important and excited as we zoomed along mile after thrilling mile. I thought Buzz’s dad was beaut because he took a real interest in me and never mentioned the long pants. I was sad to return home.

When Buzz had his birthday, I was invited to their lovely home with its huge garden. Buzz’s mother was terrific and prepared a real birthday feast. Afterwards, Buzz walked his guests to the Essendon railway station where we stood as close as we dared to the edge of the platform while the famous Spirit of Progress express train thundered by. It was awesome.

I loved the long summer school holidays. On the last day, the prospect of returning to school had me lying in bed crying. My teachers punished me every day for not doing my homework. Did they really think they could beat me into being obedient? Did it ever occur to these intelligent Jesuits that I wanted to be a good boy? What a miserable home life I endured? They certainly never asked and I probably would never have told them. I was ashamed of my parents. And I was more fearful of my mother than I was of the teachers and their beatings.

Despite this, I managed to top my class in English. The prize giving was conducted in St Patrick’s Cathedral, where I was presented with a book by the famed Archbishop Daniel Mannix. Wearing splendid robes, he sat upon his throne while we successful students lined up to collect our prizes and kiss his huge ruby ring. As we nervously waited for our moment of glory, we joked that we would kneel down to receive his blessing and steal the ring. It was only a joke. Honest. My prize was a book called Deerfoot written by the famous Biggles author, W E Johns. I loved Biggles and had begun collecting him. However, Deerfoot vindicated my ability to walk with stealth and tiptoe through my parents’ world.

Instead of Sundays being a holiday, I now went to mass with my father. He used to sleep in until after nine and we’d be lucky to make the 10 o’clock service at our local parish church. If we missed that, it meant driving into the city to the 11 o’clock mass at the Exhibition building. That was a dreaded Missa Cantata mass that was sung and went on for an hour and a half. By the time we got home and had lunch, it was 2 o’clock in the afternoon. My day was ruined.

On Sunday nights, while Dad cooked his scrambled eggs on toast, I would make myself a bath with the chip heater, being very grateful we now had enough money for our own wood. While Dad was cooking, Mum would iron our shirts for the week.

Mum was determined to learn to drive, so our weekends became a nightmare of driving lessons. Dad was still an impatient teacher and you couldn’t tell Mum a thing. I cringed in the back seat while she took huge kangaroo jumps across intersections and stalled; everyone bipped their horns and she got flushed and angry. Once she got so annoyed she got out of the car in mid-intersection and caught the tram, leaving Dad to drive home.

To my surprise, Mum passed her driving test. There was a suggestion that Dad had followed custom and tucked a five-pound note into that morning’s Sun newspaper for the examiner to find. Dad bought her a leather car key holder to commemorate the occasion. It even had her initials on it in gold.

Up until then the car had only been used Sundays, but now Mum was a driver, she took up golf on Tuesdays, and on Friday night we would often go to the movies. Where once we had two cinemas within walking distance, now with a car, we could venture into suburbs I’d never heard of. I learned to sit behind Mum in the car when Dad was driving so that she couldn’t easily reach back and whack me. I was safer when she was behind the wheel, even though she wasn’t as good a driver as Dad. But at least she’d stopped kangaroo hopping.