CHAPTER 40

Over the Rainbow

At school my grades spiralled downwards. Dysfunctional parents, unaware teachers. The cuts, as we called those sadistic beatings with a large leather strap, hurt, particularly on cold winter mornings, which was usually the time my deficient homework was assessed.

Eventually my teacher was so frustrated with my behaviour, he sent me to the headmaster. Rather than disturb his morning by recounting my misdeeds, I asked him to sign a student concession form for public transport. He did this without comment and I returned to my classroom feeling pretty bloody clever at my deception. Next morning, I was plucked from our ball game by the headmaster, who proceeded to give me a dozen of his best in a most professional headmasterly fashion, all the time enjoining me not to tell lies. I can say with pride that I didn’t cry like a sissy, though he was doing his best, but it really hurt.

Sometimes on the way home from school, we Westies would play on the new escalators in the Myer department store. They had just been installed and were made of gleaming stainless steel. If we put a Gladstone school bag containing half a ton of text books on the smooth section between the up and down escalators, it would slide down, leaving the bottom at terminal velocity making for a courageous catch, even 12 feet back. Before escalators were installed, we often went upstairs jammed into crowded lifts driven by uniformed attendants wearing gloves who would itemise what was for sale on each floor. ‘Going up. Ladies’ underwear, dressing gowns, nightgowns, slippers. Going up.’ Mum told me they were often ex-soldiers who had lost a limb during the war. I felt sad they had such boring jobs.

On occasion I would visit my grandmother’s dressmaking school. She was invariably busy with students at that time of the day, but would give me a shilling to attend an hour-show at one of two handy newsreel cinemas. In the foyer, there was an automatic dispensing machine where I would get a Nestlé chocolate to eat while watching a series of Movietone News, James Kilpatrick travelogues and a cartoon or two. The show was continuous and anyone could join or leave at will. After a day at school, I felt safe sitting alone in the warm dark comforted by chocolate.

Sometimes I would cross Princes Bridge to the Glaciarium and ice skate. After a lot of falls, I got pretty good at it. It was a lovely cool place to go in summer. One day a couple of sailors, who smelt of booze and were just beginners, stumbled in front of me, pulling me down on top of them. One of their skates jabbed into my shin and left a scary smear of blood on the ice. I didn’t cry, but it really hurt, and it taught me to keep away from learners, especially if they’d been boozing.

Back in Grandma’s building, I would play in the automatic lift. A favourite trick was to place a match between the doors to stop them closing. The doors’ soft rubber cushions hid the matchstick and while everyone would be walking up and down the emergency stairwell moaning their heads off, I would innocently look on.

The stairs beyond the sixth floor led to the roof. There, I could lean over the parapet and spit on the pedestrians coming out of Coles in Little Collins Street. This wasn’t a very accurate process as the swirling winds dragged the spittle off target. But it was a fun challenge. I was a lot more successful with water bombs. With a page from my school exercise book, I had learned to fold a little origami-style capsule that popped into a ball when I blew on it. There was a hole in the top to pour water in. We made them at school during water-bomb season, which fitted in between marbles season and cherry bob season. I don’t know who set these seasons at school, they just seemed to happen – tops, skipping, hare and hounds and brandings all came and went.

The water bombs were deadly. They contained a small cup of water and hit the footpath with a splat that made pedestrians leap then quickly look up. My skill was to enjoy the splat, but disappear before the looking up. It was rare to score even a glancing blow and a bullseye was the stuff of dreams. Enough for me to leave the roof immediately for the sanctuary of Grandma’s school.

Findlay’s gymnasium occupied the building’s top floor and sometimes I would sneak in and watch my heroes, Lew Hoad and Frank Sedgeman, play squash as they trained for the Davis Cup tennis tournament. At that time, I thought the Davis Cup was only played between Australia and the USA and the Yanks usually won.

One cold wet evening when I visited Grandma on my way home from school, she said I looked like a drowned rat and must be freezing, which was true enough. She took me to Myer and bought me a wonderfully warm woollen overcoat. When I arrived home glowing in my new coat, Mum was furious and accused me of begging. What was her problem? Here I was warm as toast in this beautiful new coat that hadn’t cost her a penny. Was she jealous about Grandma buying me an expensive gift?

Becoming a Catholic meant my friendship with Laurie virtually stopped. He couldn’t cope with my flash school uniform and me going to church all the time. He couldn’t believe I had turned into a bloody Mick.

Instead, I became friendly with two Catholic brothers who lived on Albion Street and who attended our parish church and went to the local Christian Brothers school. Behind their house, their father and uncles ran a cast iron foundry where they made wood-fired stoves and coppers. It was a delight to see them pouring the red-hot metal and grinding off the rough edges. Sparks everywhere. The boys’ mother had a new rotary clothesline that went up and down hydraulically using water. Turn one tap on, it would go up, another, it would go down. We used to swing on it by the hour and their mum never roused on us.

Another Westie schoolmate’s father was an undertaker, and sometimes I would visit their funeral home on the way home from school. They had a big joinery shop where they made their own coffins and one day, I stole a shiny metal crucifix. I hid it in my bedroom for ages before wrapping it in newspaper and shamefully tucking it into our rubbish tin. My friend had a billycart and we pushed one another around their big courtyard, being careful not to bump into the shiny black hearses and mourning cars. When no-one was around and we felt particularly daring, we would go into the funeral parlour itself where we might see a real dead body. Scary but exciting.

A classmate, John Burns, invited me to his birthday party and we played cricket in a beautiful park near his home in East Hawthorn. In the relaxed atmosphere, I top-scored with 10 runs and won an invitation from the school cricket captain to try out for the team.

My schoolmates lived in big homes with staircases and hedges. Their fathers would drive me home in their splendid cars. Once, arriving at our poor house with its tired little Ford Prefect leaning outside, we could see my parents’ shadows on the blinds as they undressed for bed. My schoolmates chuckled, saying they looked like ghosts. I tried not to care. We were a long way from the leafy suburbs with their tennis courts and walled gardens.

St Patrick’s Day was our rallying ground. My father had a special green tie for the day. I marched through the city with my classmates and tens of thousands of other Catholics. My father arranged to meet me after the parade on a street corner; it was never a surprise to me that the corner featured a pub. Dad wasn’t one of those Irish drunks you read about who drank his wages every Friday night. No, you would never say that about him. Or about Mum either, but they sure liked the grog.

Their fights ranged in proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed. A big night out: orchids, dinner suit, a table at Romano’s, tickets to South Pacific, could mean me being awakened at midnight to screaming, shouting, doors slamming and the sounds of body blows. Mum fought with more vigour than Dad. She had caustic verbal skills which would taunt him successfully about being a failure and bringing his slut home. Listening to this debate from my bed, I always felt unhappy for Dad about his one revealed night of love with a WRAAF when I knew Mum had entertained enough military to deliver a fatal attack on a small country. My sympathies were with Dad, even though I didn’t admire him much.

After the fight he would retreat to his piano and thump out another stirring ‘Warsaw Concerto’. However, if sufficiently goaded, and my mum was very good at goading, my dad could retaliate. He had a forceful right that could crack ribs. Or, if seated or lying down, he could use his legs powerfully. He had been known to lift mum right off her feet on several occasions and slam her into the kitchen cupboard. Recalling the expensive black-eye hat, Dad confined himself to body punches, but his heart was never really in it. Mum was the fierce fighter in our family. She could hurl a pot of boiling soup, a carving knife, bread board or pile of crockery without fear of consequence. Tea times were usually scary and disappointing experiences. Her cooking was boring, there was never enough for a growing boy, and the mood was tense, sometimes even dangerous.

One night, while they attended a ball, I stayed with Nana and Grandpa, returning home early next morning to prepare for school. As I approached our house, I kept meeting grinning people on their way to work. I wondered why until I reached our front gate. There on the lawn, covered in snail tracks and vomit, was my father’s dinner suit, shirt, cummerbund, socks and shoes. The lot. Obviously, Mum had been upset.

They talked separation and for a while I batched at home with Dad. We ate scrambled eggs on toast most evenings and Wheaties for breakfast and I enjoyed buying lunch at the school tuckshop. Mum had respites in modest resorts at Mt Buffalo, Mt Gambier, and even lived full-time with her parents. Dad knew that would be temporary because Mum and Grandpa could not co-exist under the same roof.

My parents blamed their families for their problems. The old Catholic–Protestant thing. They decided we should leave Melbourne. My grandmother’s business continued to thrive and she suggested Mum open her own dressmaking school in a good location like nearby Geelong. Besides, it would be cheaper to buy a house in Geelong than Melbourne, and Grandma offered to help with the deposit. I didn’t have any say in the decision. I wondered if perhaps a new school would be better.

Mum and Dad went ahead and were fortunate to rent a house in Geelong they could swap for our dump in Melbourne; I stayed peacefully with Nana and Grandpa until the winter school term finished.

Mum had such a poor opinion of Grandpa. But living with him and Nana was fun; I never got into trouble or needed a good belting. I knew better than to talk when the news was on the wireless or to mention Catholicism. And, since neither of my grandparents knew anything about Latin, French, algebra, geometry or religion, I never spoiled our peaceful evening circle with homework. Instead, I waited in their lovely warm kitchen until Grandpa had finished his pipe and was ready for tiddlywinks. I taught him to play Monopoly, which I’d learnt in Manly. Every night after dinner, we’d compete while Nana knitted and read her romance book from the library.

Grandpa was such a mug at Monopoly. He treated the money like it was real and was a very sober spender. I happily mortgaged my soul to buy all the properties and beat him hollow night after night. Strangely, his ideology kept him locked in his cautious spending pattern. He marvelled at what he saw as my good luck with the dice.

We played until Nana declared supper time, which was a highlight. I felt deliciously relaxed and safe with my grandparents in their home. I was never hungry or scared I would get into trouble or be hit. I’d go to my comfy bed with a big smile and a full stomach. At school, I would accept the nasty bits knowing I was going home to the safety of Nana and Grandpa’s.

With Nana nurturing me, I would get bigger and stronger. The cuts at school wouldn’t hurt so much, I would learn to toughen up and stop crying when my parents ridiculed me. It might even be better at the new school in Geelong. Somewhere safe where I wouldn’t get into trouble. Somewhere over the rainbow.