Amelia ‘I don’t want that black thing on my face, it stinks, where’s my father, I’m going to tell my father on you and he’ll get the police.’
Dr Crouch ‘Amelia wake up, it’s all over.’
I wanted to scream but my throat felt as if it had been ripped out through my mouth, I glared around the room and there was that traitorous woman who called herself my Mother. Mother she didn’t even know the meaning of the word what sort of person would allow their child to undergo such torture?
Doctor Crouch stood at my bedside smiling down at me as if he liked me, I stared back at him and gave him my famous go and drop-dead look. He bent forward and tickled me under the chin and said, ‘You’ll be a bit sore for a little while but you’ll be able to have some ice cream and jelly for tea.’ I smiled a whimsical smile as I lifted my head off the pillow then I chundered great globs of half congealed blood all over his lily-white coat. As my head hit the pillow, I closed my eyes and waited for death to overtake my body. I drifted into a heavenly haze with the soothing satisfaction that divine justice had been done.
I was about four, and I was quite a cute-looking chubby little girl who looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth. I’d like to show you the photos to prove it but I can’t so you’ll just have to take my word for it. I was an absolute little bitch for never wanting my photo taken. Mummy would pamper, cajole and plead with me to smile for the camera, but the more she pleaded the more determined I became that I wouldn’t.
There were a number of snaps of me dressed beautifully with my hair in ringlets and ribbons and wearing a crocheted dress. In each photo I have my arms folded across my chest with the worst scowl on my face. I can recall snarling ‘NO. I won’t. I don’t want to, and you can’t make me if I don’t want to.’ But mummy had a secret weapon of reversing the situation turning me from a defiant little devil to a blubbering mess. Almost every week, she’d say to me ‘I’m going to die one day and then you’ll be sorry.’
I detested her saying that to me and for years I constantly worried myself sick that she might die soon. We always had to call our parent’s friends by the title aunty and uncle. We had no qualms about that, but we only had three real aunts and four uncles. ‘Aunt’ Peggy took me into town to the pictures and bought me a little Golden Book. I can even remember that I wore my dark green, velvet dress with the inlay of beautiful lace on the front of the bodice. People stopped and told Aunt Peggy and myself how lovely I looked. On returning me home, Aunt Peggy told Edith that I had been a perfect angel and she promised that she’d take me out again one day. She never did though and she never stopped calling me brat face, that’s a name I detest to this very day. Funnily enough, I don’t ever recall being naughty in her presence so my reputation must’ve preceded me. If I ever hear a child being called a brat, I usually stop them and say, ‘Please don’t call him/her that, they may grow up resenting you.’
Believe me, I get some very strange looks.
Chapter 3
Relatively Speaking
Aunty Amy and Uncle Jacob had two daughters, Diane and May. Uncle Simon who was divorced had a daughter, Jean who lived with her mother Flora. I can only vaguely recall meeting Flora and Jean when I was very young. Mum’s brother Uncle Clive and his wife Denise had Betty, Bert and Nigel. Dad’s half-sister Aunty Marge had two daughters, Joan and Yvonne by her first marriage. (Quite a few years later Aunty Marge married her second husband Michael they had a son, Simon, whom I’ve never met). As Joan and Yvonne lived in Sydney, I didn’t get to meet them until we were adults.
Dad’s mother, whom we all called Ninny, would visit us at least once a year and she’d tell us all about Joan and Yvonne. Ninny used to tell me that Yvonne was her favourite granddaughter, when I eventually did get to meet Yvonne, I learnt that Ninny used to tell Yvonne that I was her favourite granddaughter. Yvonne admitted to me that she had hated me because Ninny had said that I was her favourite granddaughter, funnily enough both Yvonne and I recognised many similar idiosyncrasies we both had.
Ninny had a rather perverse habit of showing me her closed fist whenever she thought I was being naughty. In doing so, she would point to her knuckles and say, ‘See them dead babies?’ Mummy would almost reel in horror whenever she heard that.
I didn’t see Diane and May very often, but I liked them both. They were (and still are) nice girls, I was always on my best behaviour with them. Diane is James age and May is a couple of years younger than me. My fondest memory of Diane is going over to stay at their house one weekend. She painted my fingernails and put make-up on me and I thought I looked absolutely beautiful. I fondly remember playing dress ups with May whenever she and Aunty Amy came to visit us and we’d sit under the big mango tree where I’d pour cordial from the teapot of my kitchen tea set. We ate buttered arrowroot biscuits and Vegemite, peanut paste and strawberry jam sandwiches.
So, there were rare occasions when I behaved like a civilised human child.
‘Aunty’ Dot and ‘Uncle’ Stan had known Dad for many years. Aunty Dot had gone to the same school as Dad, she was only about four feet, eleven inches (one hundred and forty-eight centimetres) tall and Uncle Stan was about five feet, six inches (one hundred and sixty-five centimetres), both were hairdressers and were a typical Darby and Joan.
Uncle Stan used to like to get into the rum a bit and Aunty Dot didn’t like him drinking so he’d hide the bottles in the garden or under the spare bed or wherever he thought she’d never find it. Whenever I’d go around to their place, she’d whisper to me, ‘See if you can find them love.’ She’d give me sixpence (five cents) to buy an ice cream and I’d be in my glory looking under anything and everything. I’d fossick in drawers and cupboards and as soon as I’d find a bottle, I’d race in to tell her. She’d get hold of the bottle, look at how much was there she’d pour half into the sink and top it up with water and put the bottle back in its hiding place. It was on one of these seek and find missions that I found heaps of MAN magazines with various other Post, Pix and Women’s Weekly magazines in their spare room. I told James and Edward about the MAN magazines with the nude ladies in them and they both came to visit Aunty Dot the next time I went there. I had to innocently ask Aunty Dot if we could go and read the books with the cartoons in them in the spare room. She patted my face and said, ‘Of course you all can, sweetheart.’
We all ripped into some good educational perving at what ladies looked like without their clothes on. I adored Aunty Dot and Uncle Stan they were the loveliest couple you could ever wish to meet.
My mother’s mother and father lived with us in the big colonial house in a quiet street as did my father's brother Simon. James had not been able to say the word grandma as a little boy and he called her Mama. When Edward and I were born we carried on the tradition but over the years the word was shortened to Mum. Everyone else in the house except James and Edward called my mother Edith, and I guess at the time I couldn’t see any reason why I couldn’t as well.
Mum and Granddad were as different as chalk and cheese they were both very hard working. Granddad had owned his own slaughter yards when Edith was a little girl. He had bought all the land for one thousand pounds (two thousand dollars) and had sold it ten years later for the same amount when the abattoirs were introduced. The land was eventually subdivided some forty years later by a large real estate company who named the estate, The Wongabell Estate at Kenmore. Anyone who is familiar with that area will no doubt think that my grandfather was not much of a businessman. The area is now and has been for many years one of the most sought-after areas in Brisbane. Actually, he wasn’t really a bad businessman he had a thriving little butcher shop, in spite of the number of people who owed him for their meat supply.
Mum and Granddad were softies and could never see anyone go without, but this didn't amount to a hill of beans to the abattoirs. When the abattoirs became compulsory, Granddad, along with many other butchers