Most of the girls in my class were nice kids, but there were two or three that needed a good boot up the backside. One of the nicest girls in the class who was extremely popular with everyone, suffered the most tragic episode any child could possibly endure. Her father, a prominent businessman, blew his brains out one night on the front lawn of their beautiful home. I overheard Dad tell Edith the night it happened. I went to school the following day and told most of my classmates. The nuns got wind of me spreading the news and rang Dad and told him that I’d been telling the other kids. He apologised to the nuns, they in turn punished me with the strap and warned me that I was not to spread the story any more. They told the class that I had made the dreadful story up and that the fellow’s death was from a heart attack. It’s a mortal sin for a catholic to suicide so it had to be hushed up and the little Protestant was made out to be a liar, that was my first taste of hypocrisy and I can’t tolerate it now any more than I could then.
As I grew older my face became a horror story on its own, I had gold fillings in my front teeth but even that didn’t improve my looks. One fateful day whilst I was at a football match, I rubbed my tongue over my teeth and to my horror I discovered a hole where my gold filling should have been, I found it had landed in my lap. I was ushered back to one of the cruellest dentists in the world, Dr Rolland. He hated me with every fibre in his body, but not as much as I hated him. Whenever I was in the chair, he would pinch my cheeks hard and lift my mouth open by putting his fingers in my nostrils. He’d force my mouth to open by just pulling my nose back as hard as he could with the tips of his fingers still in my nose. He’d purposely hit my gums with the drill and make them bleed, but only enough to make them really sting there was never any permanent damage. It was pointless telling my parents because let’s face it, he was a grown up and grownups just didn’t do things like that.
So, it was with great trepidation that I went to have the gold filling reinserted. I sat in the chair and before I could even get the chance to open my mouth to avoid any nose pulling and cheek pinching, he said, ‘Open your mouth, you little bitch’ That was it. I was determined not to until I was good and ready. He pressed his thumb onto my top lip forcing it against my teeth. I could feel the pressure of the skin being flattened and I knew it wouldn’t take too much more effort on his part to bust the skin. He released the pressure allowing me to curl my top lip up in a sneer like grimace showing my teeth clenched in a snarl. Then he put the tip of his thumb under my overlapping top teeth and proceeded to force my head back until my head felt as if it was resting on my back. I dropped my lower jaw and his thumb went into my mouth so quickly that it didn’t stop until the knuckle joint was inside my mouth. That’s exactly where I hoped it would stop and that’s when I slammed my teeth together as hard and as fast as I possibly could. I held it there for what seemed like an eternity, the taste of his thumb wasn’t the best, but by Christ I enjoyed that mouthful as if it was fairy floss melting on my tongue. I thought he was going to backhand me, but he must’ve realised he’d gone too far and that any more torture would have caused bruising. He put the filling back in and told Edith that if it came out again, he wouldn’t be able to replace it without extensive treatment he said it was because I had too much acidity in my mouth. No need to be told the filling fell out again about a week later and Edith rang to make another appointment to have the extensive treatment. She was told that it would cost fifty pounds (one hundred dollars) which was more than a month’s wages and that was totally out of the question. There wasn’t any second opinion in those days so instead I was taken to the Children’s Dental Hospital at Mr Rolland’s recommendation whereby every tooth with a gold filling was extracted. I came away with five teeth missing and I had to wait almost six months before I received my first set of dentures. Over a period of time the wire clasps on those dentures wore holes in my other teeth and four years later they too were extracted. I’ve still got all my lower teeth and quite a few dentists over the years have remarked how strong they are. None of them have been able to understand how or why I should have had my upper teeth extracted. I guess nibbling the mongrel’s thumb was a big no-no.
Edward and I used to fight like cat and dog just about every day of our lives, yet if he got into a fight with Michael or Billy, I’d be in like Flynn to throw a few punches and kick their groins. I remember him getting done over like a dinner at his school one day and he told me about it that night. I felt so sorry for him and I vowed I’d get the two boys responsible at the swimming baths the following Sunday. Both Brian Butler and Ross Saxon were there when we arrived and they obviously planned to do Edward over again.
What they didn’t bargain on was his kid sister, I came out of and anything I could think of I did. I was like a rabid dog and both boys took off as fast as they could. Just about every kid within a five-mile radius was there that day and if any kid so much as looked like picking a fight with Edward after that, he’d warn them, ‘I’ll go and get my sister onto you.’
Edward’s nickname at school was Longa the Donga, my nickname at the baths was Little Longa and whenever we arrived at the baths after that fateful Sunday the kids would call out, ‘Longa the Donga’s here, oh shit watch out here comes Little Longa.’
Most of them would stay up the deep end, because even though I was a fairly strong swimmer it was too deep for me to tread water for very long. Dad had insisted we all learn to swim and for two mornings a week he’d drive me to the baths before school to have swimming lessons. I loved swimming and I still do, but six in the morning was a bit much. Edward was an exceptionally good swimmer, but his lessons were after school nearly every afternoon. I don’t know that he was good enough to go into the Olympic Games but he certainly could beat the living daylights out of any other kid as far as swimming was concerned. He had been kept in at school one afternoon and when he was finally let out, he started to run down the street to get to his swimming class. It had been raining earlier in the day and as he ran, he skidded on a wet patch on the side of the road. He lost his balance and ended up in the gutter with a fractured elbow. Not only did it stop him from swimming that season it stopped him from ever swimming competitively because his elbow was left with a permanent kink in his arm. I used to tell him that his elbow matched his brain because both of them were warped.
I too had a slight accident whilst practicing my diving expertise one afternoon. The only problem was I wasn’t diving into the water. For that matter I didn’t even have my swimmers on, I was showing off in front of Lorna telling her what a good diver I was. I was standing on the edge of the footpath that led to our front steps from the gate. I faced the steep hilly side of our front yard standing on my toes I lifted my arms up behind my back and in perfect formation, I thrust them straight out in front of myself whilst tilting myself forward. I got so carried away with my own importance I couldn’t stop the inevitable and I plunged head long down the hill. I slid the entire length of the yard approximately fifty feet, (fifteen metres) and landed heavily on my skull as I came to an abrupt halt when my head hit the fence. It served me right for being such a smart arse.
We always had a few chooks or ducks kept in a big pen down alongside the back fence. They were supposed to be in the pen, but Edward and I would let them out to run around the yard.
We both loved all sorts of animals but it wasn’t our kindness that caused us to let the chooks out. The pen was covered by a big choko vine, which provided us with the perfect place to hide and smoke but we didn’t smoke cigarettes. We were ‘smarter’ than that we used to smoke thin brown hollow reeds that grew near the chook pen. Your guess is as good as mine as to what damage we were doing to our lungs. In all probability we were in fact ingesting chook and duck shit into our bodies. I suppose the reeds weren’t any better or worse than tobacco anyway.
Chapter 7
Weekends and Holidays
One night we got a call from Dad’s cousin, Muriel, and her husband, Albert, who lived in Sydney. They announced that they and their three children would be arriving in the next two hours or so, to stay for a three-week holiday. Dad seemed to be pleased, he hadn’t seen his cousin for years, but he was the only one who was pleased though.
Dad’s