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 relatives had a bad habit of lobbing on the doorstep unannounced and ended up staying for months at a time. I remember an uncle Ned and an uncle Ted. One of them only had one arm and the other used to whistle all the time. They’d both settle in for lengthy stays at different times much to our disgruntlement. So, when Edith woke us at about 9.30pm and said we had to play musical beds to accommodate an entire family we were most upset to say the least. To make matters even worse the whole family were turdy toads as far as us kids were concerned.
Claire was a bit older than James Jimmy was slightly younger (about halfway between James and Edward’s age) and Raymond was a year or so younger than me. Jimmy was the only one that any of us liked. They made a regular habit of coming up each year for about five years afterwards then Muriel and Albert came on their own. Each year without fail, I’d say to Edith, ‘Tell them to bugger off, you can’t stand a bar of them, so I don’t know why you put up with them. They’re nothing but bludgers.’
But she would never admit to not liking them. She’d just suffer them in silence and be a good hostess and slave to all their beck and call.
Muriel had had a bowel operation and she had to wear a colostomy bag for years. The smell of her used to make us all want to vomit. Normally we would’ve had a great deal of sympathy for her, but she wasn’t a very nice person. What I like to describe as having the personality of a cane toad. I, of course, got up her nose by refusing to call her aunty. I maintained she was not my aunty and I had no desire to call her that.
She thought children should be seen and not heard and that naughty children should be sent to bed with their bums smacked. That was her favourite saying to me and I’d look at her in disgust
Amelia ‘Well, why don’t you give your own kids a belting then?’
Dad
