away, that I could take advantage of. It didn’t dawn on Mum at first that the visits were arranged to fit in with OT Kittie’s shopping needs—government vehicle, government fuel, government paying her a day’s wages. My mother said she had fleetingly thought that the connection between the suggested therapist appointments and my needs was at times tenuous, but she had still been naïve. She thought it was all about helping me.
The suggested visits weren’t weekly—maybe monthly. OT Kittie would meet Mum and me in Leichhardt at whichever clinic’s turn it was that time. She would briefly smile at us and pat Mum on the shoulder and me on the head—carefully avoiding any risk of spittle contamination. Then she would disappear, and reappear a few hours later with a car full of shopping. We’d get another pat and we’d see her again next clinic visit.
What was going on only dawned on Mum when she—we (I was there too)—overheard OT Kittie on the phone discussing picking up sheet music one of her friends had ordered.
“Don’t worry; if they’re not there this week, I’ll be back the week before Christmas,” OT Kittie said to her phone friend.
When she later happened to mention another specialist who coincidentally coincided with this same week, Mum twigged to the pattern. How did she feel? She didn’t realise anyone could be so tight with money to twiddle the system for free transport and a day’s wages. Hurt, disbelief, anguish that anyone would use—exploit—a little girl so cruelly disabled. So when the special-ed director refused to apply for communication equipment, my mother got doubly angry.
Mum included an outline of K-Kittie’s therapy visit practice in her letter to our local member—it’s probably still on the Department file—and kept a copy in her computer diary folder. Resulting action—suspension, inquiry, termination. Miss Director Kourtney met a similar fate, but in her case for continually failing to follow educational standard protocols. It included her dealings with other kids too, a number of them.
Director Kourtney actually resigned; she didn’t wait for the formal termination letter. She couldn’t handle being around the scrutiny of the ministerial investigation of her implementation of educational requirements. It was basically a case of too many fluffy toys, too little accountability.
You’d think educated people would accept they had erred. You’d think they’d be shamed, repentant, humiliated. But some people—probably the sort who’d exploit the disabled in the first place—simply hate. They store their hate and allow it to swell with a growing indignity of the injustice. The indignity of losing out to a frickin’ boong and retard. How dare they be treated so shabbily? How dare their status not be insulation?
Revenge brews, gurgles, waiting. And I guess OT Kittie didn’t have to wait too long for her revenge. Her husband Dominic is the crony solicitor who won my father’s custody hearing against my mother.
Rememory 17
I can hear the tide raging against the sand dunes. These are modern dunes, only five years old, and the sea isn’t happy. You think you can appease the gods by dredging a channel? You think you can cover up a hundred years of people-abuse by a week of sand dredging? Think again. You’ll get away with it for a short time, then just when you think it’s worked, just when you think those brick and tile monuments are safe, the real gods of the universe will chuck a hissy fit and change it all back—and more.
All those years ago, not long before Mum left, the phone rang right on nine am. Mum was reading me a book in the air-conditioning. We were sitting right next to the phone, so when she answered, I could easily hear both sides.
“Good morning,” the phone said. “Elizabeth Ellis here. I’m the Department of Education regional manager, based in Leichhardt. Our psychologist and I would like to discuss with you the school you’d prefer for Sophie to attend. As I see it, you have five equidistant options …”
It took a while for it to sink in. My mother’s body initially stiffened into auto-defence hostility response reaction to government departments, then a cloud of incredulity puffed through her. Her letter had worked. Beyond anything imaginable.
“Sophie is required to undergo assessment of her current achievement level,” Miss Ellis said. “All students attending Queensland state schools undergo this testing, but in light of Sophie’s disability, unfortunately the only people with the skills to assess her are in Brisbane. Would it be possible for Sophie and yourself to attend an assessment in Brisbane? It is of course fully funded.”
I watched my mother’s brain jump way, way ahead of where she thought even remotely possible. All the “ifs” had been bypassed. I was mainstream.
Rememory 18
The flight to Brisbane for my assessment was a nightmare. My mother sounded like she was weeping when she wrote in her diary about the trip.
The major airline pilots were on strike, and the only option—one of those ill-fated Beechcraft Barons—fluttered insignificantly for four hours each way. Unmodified altitudinal pressure changes played havoc with my brain, repeatedly triggering epileptic fits, triggering hours and hours of screaming. Mum seriously questioned what she was doing.
“Does education warrant such torture?” she wrote in her diary.
“If I’d known this was the cost, probably not. But there are no specialist assessors locally who have the skills to test someone with the extent of Sophie’s disabilities,” my mother wrote.
In the Brisbane office of Anne Sorenson, testing someone like me didn’t seem to be a problem. The day before, when we arrived at Brisbane airport, we took a stinkin’ taxi to the city and stayed at Lennons Hotel. Lennons is a bit old-world flash, and Mum liked it because it was on street level and she could wheel me straight into the Queen Street Mall. When we walked into the hotel lobby, the man at the desk knew us and spoke to me by name. I liked him.
“Hello, young Lady Sophie, and how are you this fine afternoon?” He’s called me Lady Sophie forever—I can’t remember when he started.
We had spent quite a bit of time in Brisbane over the past few years, when they were trying to find out what was wrong with me, when I was diagnosed with Rett Syndrome.
“Put her in a home,” the diagnosing paediatrician advised. “Get on with your life. She will never be older than ten months of age mentally, less probably.”
I was there, fully mentally functioning at three years old when he said this. I reckon I was more like mentally five years old. I’m way smarter than most kids. Modest too. The specialist was old and meant well, but I had to do something, so I spat on him, screamed and flailed my arms and legs. He didn’t understand what I was trying to say, and he gave Mum some medicine to keep me “comfortable”.
It was a horrendous trip, that diagnosis trip. It was just Mum and me and we took a taxi from the specialist’s rooms at Wickham Terrace back to near Jimmi’s on The Mall Cafe. It isn’t far—only a few blocks, but the hill is very steep and Mum was scared she wouldn’t be able to hold the chair, wheeling down.
The taxi driver was mightily pissed off—because it was just a short trip, I think. When he stopped in Edward Street, he didn’t bother to get out to help Mum. He popped the boot, and left Mum with me in one arm to drag the wheelchair out onto the road. It was one of those old heavy wheelchairs. As soon as she closed the boot, the driver accelerated off leaving Mum, me and my chair in a heap, crumpled in the gutter, bruised, spluttering in exhaust stink.
