by Ann Fogarty
The Maybaums’ home was nothing like the first house in grandeur. They’d bought two terrace houses and were knocking out the shared wall to turn them into one. When I first arrived, everything was higgledy-piggledy; stuff everywhere, the smell of dust in the air, small mounds of building rubble in the corners. The builders and other tradesmen onsite, some of them young, had great fun teasing me and would say, ‘Oh, look out! Here comes Mary Poppins again’.
Before the wall between the houses was fully dismantled, the parents and the three eldest children slept in one house, while baby Rebecca, myself, Inge the Austrian au pair girl, and a couple of lodgers slept in the other. One day, just after the middle wall had been knocked down, Mr Maybaum completely forgot and came out of his bedroom with nothing on. I walked out of my room at the same moment and saw him starkers—the first time I’d seen a naked man. At first he was embarrassed, though probably not as much as I was, but when he laughed and said, ‘Oh, it really doesn’t matter, you’re one of our family now’, I had the most wonderful sense of finally belonging, of having a home.
The Maybaums weren’t Orthodox but took their faith seriously. Mr Maybaum and Simon would clip on their kippahs every Saturday and walk to synagogue. He and I often discussed religious matters over dinner. He was studying different religious traditions at a night class at the time and I had just begun my journey into spiritual matters. He invited me to go along to synagogue with them, which I did once or twice, finding some similarities but also differences from my own experiences in church, particularly the separation of men and women in the services. My most vivid memories in this household were of the weekly Sabbath meals, a ritual that intrigued and warmed me. As Mrs Maybaum prepared the meal, I’d get the three older children ready, washing their hair, giving them baths, cutting their nails and dressing them in their best clothes. We’d come to the table set with twin silver candelabras and the good crockery, and sit down to the smell of a freshly baked plait of bread, waiting until Mr Maybaum would begin the meal by reciting a prayer, Barukh Ata Adonai Eloheinu… After a blessing, the table would come alive with talk and laughter amid the aroma of chicken soup, roast meat and vegetables, then baked apples for dessert. This is where I drank wine for the first time and black tea with lemon. Mr and Mrs Maybaum included me in everything, explaining the meaning of the Hebrew chanting, the lighting of the candles and breaking of the bread. I loved it, feeling the truly spiritual dimension of this beautiful ritual. The family celebrated all the religious events with gusto, even putting great effort into celebrating Christmas for me.
Apart from being exposed to new cultural and religious practices, living with the Maybaums was an extraordinarily rich experience in the sense that it showed me how different families could operate. Feelings and appreciation flowed freely and openly here, conversation was often vigorous. I knew I was a valued member of their family because they actually told me so.
The workload was much greater but the job was a huge improvement. Inge, the au pair girl, was the same age as me and we soon became good friends. I felt better than I had for a long, long time. Both parents often said they hoped that I’d stay with them for many years and I hoped so too. Well, for a long time, if not years, because you never know what’s around the corner.
During this period, my parents and Jill came down to London for their summer holiday and were able to meet the Maybaums and see me in my new environment. I felt very grown-up and proud of myself, both as a wage-earner and an older sister when I was able to buy Jill a record she really wanted but couldn’t afford herself.
My off-duty time, though, was only a few hours twice a week. I had to feed Rebecca her two o’clock bottle and settle her down before I could leave the house for the afternoon, and be back to give her the ten o’clock feed at night, which didn’t leave much time to socialise. I was often allowed time off on Sundays, though, and having recently become a keen churchgoer, decided to go to the evening service at the local Anglican church. St Margaret’s had a happening youth group that met on both Saturday and Sunday evenings, and after one of the services, a young man called Gary invited me to come to it. With a couple of hours to spare before needing to return to Rebecca, I said yes, never dreaming that that simple ‘yes’ would start me on a journey that would take me right across the world and almost cost me my life.
Youth group was held in an old hall with rows of spring-up seats for film nights, single wooden ones for gathering round in meetings, a loft for having cups of tea or coffee, an area for badminton, and signs that reminded you to leave the rooms in the state in which you found them. We went on outings together, visited elderly people, and helped out at a home for intellectually disabled people, conducting our own services there, singing with them, and taking out the residents who were able to go shopping or to the park. On Guy Fawkes Night that year, I took the three older Maybaum children to a bonfire the group had organised.
Despite feeling inhibited and socially inadequate, I went along to youth group whenever I could. They were good people, all around my age and friendly. It was the first group I’d been in since I’d left school which included boys—and I found the boys easy-going and kind, a refreshing departure from the ones at school. They used to rib me about my northern accent, mimicking it, but always in a good-hearted way. On one occasion I even took on a part in a concert the group staged, reluctantly of course, and every time I opened my mouth the audience laughed at the way I said things. Luckily, the skits were meant to be funny.
My accent might have amused the Londoners but it wasn’t nearly as noticeable as that of a young Australian man called Terry. I fell for Terry’s accent right away. He was twenty-one and slim with a swimmer’s shoulders, easy on the eye, with dark hair and eyes; not handsome in the Cliff Richard kind of way but I was immediately drawn to him. He was working in England for two years as a researcher in the product development area of a heating firm. Like hundreds of Australians at the time, he was doing the overseas working holiday thing but living in Harrow rather than Earl’s Court where Australians tended to gather. Terry used to avoid them as much as he could, feeling embarrassed by ex-pats who seemed to think it was smart to exaggerate their accents overseas: the g’daaaay drawl. For his part, Terry recalled first noticing me when I was playing sport. He was impressed by my hand-eye co-ordination! But he also noted, not surprisingly, that I was ‘quiet’.
When we first met I was eighteen and he had only a year remaining before he was due to return to Australia. Terry seemed different from English men—more self-assured and mature than most of the men I knew, which admittedly wasn’t many. I hadn’t gone out with a boy since David the Prefect and Kissing Claudio, if you counted that last episode. Even though Terry was from the other side of the world we were both drawn together as outsiders. He was easy to chat to—a big thing for me.
We soon realised that we liked being together. Terry had his own car and when I could get time off work we’d go for a drive and have tea somewhere. The youth group had filled the social vacuum that both of us felt, having left our family and friends behind when we moved to London. So, much of our dating took place in youth group activities which suited both of us. As time went on I found myself savouring the thought of our encounters, turning them over and over happily in my head as I went about my day’s work at the Maybaums’, glancing at Terry at youth group, day-dreaming about talking with him. His obvious interest touched me; I hadn’t really experienced that before.
Being one of the members who had a car, Terry used to take a carload of people home after youth group socials, deliberately dropping me off last so we could have a bit more time to be together. One day after he’d done this, as he was sitting in the front seat and I was sitting in the back, he turned around and said to me, ‘If you want to marry me you’ll have to come back to Australia’. It was only then that it dawned on me that Terry really did like me. We hadn’t even kissed yet! I didn’t hesitate when I replied, with just a hint of excitement, ‘Yes, that will be absolut
ely fine!’ So English. I didn’t need to think about it, though; it was from the heart. I’d known him about eight or nine months when he proposed, if you can call it that; and it was only then that I really let myself fall in love with him. Funnily enough, I can’t remember our first kiss but I do know that when we went to buy the engagement ring we still hadn’t kissed. We would often laugh together later at our inexperience in these matters.
We became engaged around Easter of 1970, after Terry had gone up to Lancashire on his own to ask Dad for permission to marry me—a brave move given that he hadn’t previously met my parents and was essentially asking if he could take me to the other side of the world, forever. My parents respected him for visiting, however. Unfortunately, Mum fed him watercress sandwiches which he’d never had before and these, combined perhaps with the stress of the situation, made him quite sick. They probably also made him wonder what he was in for in terms of food—if only he knew! My father, in his practical way, did wonder if I knew what I was doing, given that Terry and I hadn’t known each other long. My mother was concerned, too, and sad about the prospect of her daughter going so far away. Jill just said to Terry one day, ‘You must be mad to marry my sister!’ I think her reaction was more about realising that the family, her family, was about to change forever. However, my parents rallied around magnificently considering what they must have been feeling at the time, organising all the wedding preparations, checking in with us for our approval on all the details.
We were married in August in the Anglican church at Ribchester without anyone from Terry’s family being able to attend. Despite being very much in love with Terry and eager to be going off on this big adventure to the other side of the world, my social anxieties had not subsided. I was definitely the blushing bride and looked forward to the end of the ceremonies. However, I couldn’t help marvelling that after having been so shy around boys, here I was actually married to one of them. Within a few months, Terry had gone from being ‘Terry at youth group’ to ‘my husband’. It was hard to believe.
I started counting down the days until we left England. Australia offered a completely new start; no one would know me, and maybe I could overcome my introversion and live as a more outgoing, free-and-easy person. Because of my extreme shyness I often lived in my head. I began to day-dream about how life in Australia would be. Before I met Terry, the only things I really knew about the country, which I learned in my last year at school, were that it was hot and full of sheep. Australia was a blank canvas on which to paint my dreams: Terry and I, our own little house with a white picket fence—always a white picket fence—and four beautifully behaved children.
9
DREAMS COME TRUE
I was dry-eyed as I stepped onto the tarmac at Heathrow Airport bound for my new country, waving goodbye to family and friends. I couldn’t share in their tears—it all seemed too exciting. Farewelling us were my mother and father, close family friends and members of the youth group with whom we’d become particularly friendly. Jill was too upset to come; she thought she really was losing her sister. My mother was crying and, although my father wasn’t, I felt that he was sad to see me go, too—in his own way. It was awfully hard for my mother—Australia was such a long way away—and it was even difficult and expensive to make phone calls then. At that time she knew nothing about the country other than it was the place where convicts were sent—and that information was a little out-of-date! Jacky, the youngest child of a family who’d come to farewell us, apparently held onto Mum’s hand, looked up and said, ‘This must be the worst day of your life’—an amazingly perceptive and compassionate remark for a girl of nine or ten. Years later, my mother told me that after I left she would sit at the piano playing Fur Elise over and over, a piece I absolutely loved. She was a mess in the weeks after I departed but I didn’t know this. At the time I barely spared her a thought.
I was hyped with excitement for a few hours on the plane, running through scenarios of how life in my new country would be, as Terry dozed off. Then, as weariness set in and the young baby in front of us cried for hours on end, the exhilaration began to wear off. This was the time before jumbos and, after only a few hours, the aeroplane began to feel cramped and closed-in. Terry turned out to be a good sleeper on planes so was out to it for much of the journey, but I always stayed awake when flying, just in case we crashed and I needed to be alert.
During the long and tedious journey—twenty-nine hours comes to mind—I became more and more nervous and uncertain. By the time we’d reached Australia, the enormity of what I’d done really began to hit me. Here I was, about to land in this unknown country, knowing no one but my husband of two weeks, and even we didn’t really know each other that well.
Terry’s sister was there to meet us at a stopover at Sydney Airport when we first touched down in Australia. I was nervous about meeting Marilyn—the first relative. What if she was disappointed with her brother’s choice? But I needn’t have worried. Marilyn greeted us with enthusiasm and warmth, and I was delighted to see the great affection between Terry and her. Decked out in chic beige pants and a cream blouse, Marilyn positively oozed confidence. She was capable and together, but not in a daunting way. We were as different as chalk and cheese, but I knew right away that we’d get on.
When we landed at Essendon Airport in Melbourne later that day, a short, motherly-looking woman, and a man who resembled an older version of Terry stepped forward as we approached to hug me, giving me a big kiss first to make me feel welcome. Flo and John were like my own parents in many ways—ordinary, good, hard-working people, content in doing the quiet, simple things in life. The difference between John and Dad though was that I could actually talk to John—there was none of the awkwardness I’d experienced with my own father.
Flo and John hadn’t seen Terry for two-and-a-half years so were understandably keen to talk to him. I suddenly felt very alone as we sat in the back seat of the car travelling to their home in Elsternwick. I stared steadfastly at the passing suburbs, trying hard not to cry, hoping no one would notice.
Coming fresh from England, Australia seemed so strange. It was a sort of dusty-looking pale green in September, rather than the vivid spring colours I was used to, and there seemed an abundance of sky. Everything looked bigger—broad roads, instead of narrow winding country lanes, streetscapes that weren’t closed in like they were in England, long distances between cities and suburbs. Just the vastness of it all struck me in that little while after I arrived, and everything all around me seemed so new. Instead of the dark rows of old terraced houses, everyone in the suburbs seemed to have a separate, freestanding residence, some even made of timber, and most with a big garden, as well. This seemed extraordinary and quite marvellous. ‘Perhaps everyone here is rich’, I thought, feeling distinctly foreign.
John and Flo had arranged for some of Terry’s friends to come over on our first evening. My heart sank as the doorbell rang and the first few excited guests were let in to much hugging and backslapping. Of course, everyone wanted to see Terry again after his time away but bed was all I could think of after the long, sleepless trip and being landed in unfamiliar surroundings. I sat awkwardly in one of the lounge chairs acutely aware of being on show as the new wife, trying my hardest to be sociable and wishing it would all be over soon. When one of Terry’s friends came over at one point and knelt by the side of my chair for a casual chat, I felt absurdly grateful for the gesture, and relaxed for the first time that evening. I was hugely relieved at the end of the evening when we finally retired to John and Flo’s spare room.
Coming into a completely new country and knowing no one except my husband was fascinating but it also pushed me far outside my comfort zone, given that relaxed social interactions were, for me, fraught at the best of times. So I was caught completely off guard not long afterwards when I met one of John’s cousins. Nesta, a robust, straight-talking woman, was sitting on a chair in the kitchen when I was introduced to her and, to my surprise, she called me
over and told me to sit on her knee—I was twenty at the time! She had always worked with children and I can only imagine that she was used to asking the younger folk to do this. I grew fond of her quickly, however, and mercifully didn’t have to perch on her lap every time I saw her!
The first two weeks at Terry’s parents’ house passed by in a blur as I adjusted to my new life. Flo and John loved having us there with them but they both had to work, and Terry needed to return to work soon after we arrived back, which left me alone all day. It was strange and lonely suddenly being by myself in a place where I knew nobody else and had no one to talk to or even ring up. I decided to get a job as quickly as possible. This involved me catching my first tram into the city to visit the government department that would verify my qualifications.
Looking out the window as the tram trundled down St Kilda Road past unfamiliar landmarks, it was sinking in more and more just what a different world I had landed in.
During this period, I filled in my days wandering around Elsternwick and absorbing the scenes. The suburb was so different from those in English cities, with its big blocks, detached houses and wide footpaths. I’d never even seen a nature strip before. Where I’d lived in England, either grass or concrete ran down to the road. An English acquaintance in Australia once told me that she’d written home and mentioned to her family that her husband was outside ‘doing the nature strip’. They wrote back to ask if that was some kind of weird Australian dance.
