Linda would take me into the room to scare me. The brother would roll over his mattress to reveal his stash of horror toys. He said he cut them up to see how they worked. He was only eleven or twelve years old at this point so who knows what happened to him. Maybe he became a doctor, I hope, or maybe he’s in jail; I don’t know. But I was always more than a little scared by the whole idea of his collection. I didn’t go over to their house very often and never at all without Linda. I was too scared of them. The sister was Linda’s best mate. She wasn’t a collector like him but she was wild in different ways. I think she and Linda terrorised young boys their own age. They were tomboys. In fact, they were tougher than most of the boys of their age around our area. They knew how to control them too. Linda wasn’t afraid of getting into trouble. She had problems with anyone who tried to have authority over her – school, the teachers, and especially Mum and Dad. If you told Linda she couldn’t do something that was the first thing she did. The guys in the area weren’t quite as prepared to be punished as she was. The guys avoided getting caught at all costs but Linda didn’t care.
Linda and her mates would drag me along as they jumped fences into the back of shops and factories, anywhere they weren’t allowed to go. They would sneak into the swimming pool or con their way into the skating rink by batting their innocent-looking eyelids at some poor old guy who felt sorry for them. They could find trouble anywhere.
One hot summer’s day Linda, me and a few other kids from the street decided to walk a few miles from home to a creek near the Edinburgh Air Force base in Elizabeth, next to the Weapons Research Establishment. I had heard there was a deep hole there that was perfect for swimming, so we wagged school. We jumped the fence like commandos on some sort of raid and crawled across the paddock so we wouldn’t be seen. There were signs on the fence saying ‘No Entry’ but no one caught us; in fact, we never saw anyone on patrol. For what we thought would be a high-security place it was very easy to break into. Maybe the weapons they were researching weren’t that good and not worth protecting.
I remember sitting down on the ground in my underwear, getting myself mentally ready to swim, when I felt the worst pain I had ever felt, and in a place where I had never expected it. Unbeknown to me I had sat on top of a bull ants’ nest and I was covered in them. They’re not the nicest insects and they don’t like it if you sit on their front doors so they attacked me. I ran screaming to the swimming hole with ants biting my balls and anywhere else they could sink their teeth. Do ants have teeth? Never mind, whatever they had, they were sinking them into me. When I dived into the water it was the happiest I had ever been to be underwater in my life. I went home and I didn’t wag school again for a long, long time.
To escape the house there was another place us kids used to go to swim. This place was a little more difficult to get to. My mates and I would break up into groups and hitchhike, if we could get a ride. It was between Smithfield and Gawler. About two or three miles out of Smithfield there was a farm, and on that farm was an old quarry. The quarry hadn’t been used for years and underground water had filled it, turning it into the perfect swimming hole. It even had small cliffs to dive off.
There were just a few things that made it less inviting than it sounds. If you didn’t get a lift from a passing car, the walk along the Main North Road was long. And in the summer – the time you wanted to swim – it was extremely hot. It was so hot that we had to wear shoes as the sun melted the tar on the road and it would burn bare feet. I know this because I walked it in bare feet a few times. Even if you wore shoes they would sometimes stick to the road, making it an unpleasant walk to say the least.
That was just the first hurdle. Next we had to climb over a barbed-wire fence and walk a mile or so through a paddock covered in prickles. Now prickles weren’t new to us; all over Elizabeth there were millions of prickles. For young kids who liked to go barefoot or wear plastic sandals like a lot of us did, it could be like walking through a field of land mines, one wrong step sending agonising pain shooting through your legs.
There were two main types of prickles. The first and the ones most commonly found were burrs, and they just inflicted a little pain, but they got caught in your socks and were generally a pain in the arse. Especially if you got them on your arse somehow. The other type, though, were lethal. They were small but deadly. We called them three corner jacks and if you stood on one you normally leaped into the air in pain and, unfortunately, that meant you landed on more of them. Because there was never only one. These prickles were designed by nature to use their spikes and the fact was they always attacked in numbers.
The next big stumbling block you had to face on this pilgrimage to the quarry was by far the scariest. Scattered throughout the paddocks, between the road and the quarry, there were always cows, but sometimes, if you were unlucky, there would be bulls. On more than one occasion I was chased by a bull while walking happily through the fields for a swim, only just escaping by jumping through the fence and tearing my clothes. Granted we did tease the bulls, but they were much bigger than us and could have killed us if they got to us.
If you managed to conquer all of these challenges you could enjoy a fantastic swim in the cool, clear, fresh water of this fabulous pond, provided the farmer didn’t come by and chase you off. A few of my friends were shot with salt pellets by the farmer while they were on their way to the pond but I was always lucky.
We would lie flat on our backs in the long grass with our eyes closed and bake in the hot summer sun, dreaming of food and girls and anything else that came to our minds. Then we would swim to our hearts’ content in the quarry, which we considered our own secret club. We never told anyone we didn’t like about this place. It was all ours.
At the end of the day we would drag ourselves back to the road, so tired we would be pulling towels and whatever behind us, hardly having the strength to talk, praying that someone would take pity on us and pick us up when we got to the highway. Otherwise, we would have to walk home, which meant we wouldn’t get back until after dark and might miss any dinner that was to be had. Mostly, even if I didn’t eat I would sleep like a baby. I might be hungry but I’d be happy.
CHAPTER NINE
the sound of breaking glass
Christmas was a hard time at our house. Like most kids we wanted everything we saw, but unfortunately Mum and Dad had no money, so we never got that much. But that wasn’t the problem. The real problem stemmed from my folks feeling guilty about not having a lot to give us and that would lead to Dad drinking more to make himself feel better.
He was born an alcoholic, just like me, only he never addressed it. He just let everything that happened in his life give him one more reason to drink. I think even his drinking problem depressed him and made him drink more. It was never going to end well.
Like on any other day of the year, a fight could break out between Mum and Dad, especially once they started drinking. We would all get scared. We didn’t want all the toys in the world. All we wanted was for them to love us and make us feel safe. They tried their best, I guess, and every year they would scrimp and save to get us something so that Christmas morning there would be at least one thing for us when we woke up.
I remember not being able to sleep one Christmas Eve and sneaking out and seeing one of them painting some broken old bike they’d bought, trying to make it look new for me. Next day I was out riding in the street getting paint all over my hands because it hadn’t dried. But it looked new to me and I loved it.
Dad would tell us, ‘The old ones are much better than the new ones.’ I think he was trying to convince himself.
Parties usually happen on special occasions, like Saturday nights. But a party could spring up on any day in our house. Thursday was a good one because a lot of people got paid on Thursdays.
But when there was a special occasion, a birthday or the like, Mum and Dad’s friends would turn up in their good clothes. Mum and Dad liked to look their best and most party nights they looked pretty good
. Mum scrubbed up well considering she didn’t have a lot of money to spend on clothes. Her hair would be in rollers all the day before and come the night it would spring into action exactly as she had planned. She looked beautiful, she wore high heels and her make-up would be perfect. Dad wore a good shirt and tie and for really special occasions he wore a suit. Dad had a way of always looking well-groomed and handsome.
Some of their mates were not quite so stylish. They looked like they’d got off work twenty minutes before. They probably had. You could see the odd bit of grease and mud behind their ears or on their necks that they’d missed as they hurriedly washed to get to the party on time. Dad’s mates didn’t seem to have the same sense of style that he did. And a few of them looked like they’d been dressed by their mothers – shirts tucked in unevenly and hair pushed back as if their mum had licked her hand and stuck it down.
The women who came to the parties always thought that they were dressed up to the nines, swaying like streetwalkers as they walked in the front door. Some wore tight blouses and skirts, and had shiny earrings that reminded me of fishing lures. Others wore loud patterned dresses with plunging necklines that looked like they might have been in fashion when they left Scotland many years before, but not anymore. They weren’t like my mum. I thought that she always looked perfect but I might have been biased. I don’t think so. They seemed to wear a lot of make-up too and were smothered in perfume, maybe too much. By the end of the night they looked a little worse for wear – eyes glazed and lipstick smeared across their faces. Often, the perfume mixed with the sweat from dancing and the booze coming from their pores made them smell a lot less attractive than when they arrived. It was overpowering for a young guy but Dad’s mates seemed to like them as they groped and grabbed at the women who cooed and smiled at them towards the end of the night.
Booze was the main thing on the menu. They all seemed to like a good liquid meal. I don’t think some of their friends ever ate anything in all the years I saw them at our house. So there wasn’t a lot of food at the parties unless it was New Year. Potato chips, poured carefully into bowls and placed around the room before anyone arrived, quite often lay there at the end of the night, soggy and sharing their space with cigarette butts and beer bottle tops. There always seemed to be one bloke who’d drunk too much to notice, who would be eating them by the handful as the party wound up, chips flying out of his mouth as he told bad jokes and staggered towards the door.
The big celebration for us and all the other Scots we knew seemed to be New Year, or Hogmanay as it was called in Scotland.
Every year Mum would clean and cook to get the house ready for a big party on New Years’ Eve. They would fill the bathtub with drinks and the fridge with food. Where the money came from suddenly, I just didn’t know.
Sometimes we would watch the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo on television. They quite often replayed it on New Year’s Eve, probably for all the Scots in Adelaide. Keep them inside and off the streets; it would be safer for everyone in the town that way. Even if it wasn’t on, there was always lots of Scottish music playing in the house. Singing those same old songs about Scotland and wanting to be home that they always sang when they were drunk, whether they were in Australia, Scotland or anywhere else. But because it was New Year they seemed to sing with even more conviction, as if they were trying to let the folks back home hear them. They would be singing the exact same songs in Glasgow and in every other Scottish community around the world. It was like they were one, connected with each other through the songs of their fathers.
If you came to a party at our house, or any of my parents’ friends’ places, there was always a chance that someone would bring a record player and their favourite records, mainly pipe bands and the odd Andy Stewart album. We’d hear the same records wherever we went. Maybe they all had the same albums.
The night would always start well, with eating and singing and everyone waiting until midnight, then the party would really take off. At five minutes to midnight we would all gather around. The music would be turned off, except for maybe the radio, so we could all count down to the New Year.
Dad would quieten down everybody who wasn’t ready to count. ‘Shut it, come on, shut it, everybody. I cannae hear the wireless.’
And then everyone in the house would stand by with a glass of whisky, even us kids. And we would all count down the last ten seconds to midnight together.
‘Ten – nine – eight – seven – six – five – four – three – two – one!’
A roar would go up and everyone would kiss and hug each other and we would all sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ at the top of our voices. I never really knew what I was singing about but it sounded important so I acted like I meant it. Mumbling any bits I didn’t know the words to, just like all the other Scots I’d seen singing at parties, hoping no one noticed.
I always remember the feeling in the house was that all the bad stuff that had happened throughout the last year was gone, washed away by whisky and drunken tears of joy, and as if by magic all our lives were going to be all right. Mum and Dad even seemed to love each other.
‘I love you, Jim,’ my mum would say with a sound of hope in her voice.
‘I love you too, Dot,’ Dad would reply.
And we would feel safe. That was, until later.
There is a Scottish tradition called first-footing, where after midnight, someone tall, with dark hair, will enter the house bringing gifts of whisky and coal. It usually ended up being one of my folks’ friends or Dad himself. But whoever was chosen to first-foot had to leave the house before midnight and then reenter straight after the clock struck twelve, bringing good luck to the family.
The coal was to bring warmth into the house, and the whisky was to toast a Happy New Year and bring good cheer. The coal was normally thrown away quite quickly, but the whisky always seemed to get things heated anyway. Quite often the first-footer in our house ended up getting thrown out later on for getting too drunk, especially if it was Dad.
Not long after midnight all the kids would be sent to bed. Mum’s mates’ kids would be stuck into bed with us so the older people could drink more, which was a bit strange because they were already drinking like fish anyway. How much more could they drink without us around?
We would lie in bed and hear the voices getting louder. Someone would mention football or look the wrong way at someone else’s wife or even spill another man’s drink. Then there would be arguments, verbal at first, but sooner or later there would be a crash and someone would fall to the ground.
‘Don’t you hit ma man, ya bastard.’
‘Shut yer fuckin’ mooth ya hoor or I’ll belt ye tae. I’m sick tae death o’ that drunken pig.’
‘Leave him alone.’
‘Come on now, everybody, calm doon. It’s Hogmanay. Let’s aw just get another drink and have a wee sing.’
Smash. It was beyond calming down. Punches were being thrown and blood was starting to flow. The party had come to a screaming halt.
‘Get oot ma hoose. Now!’
‘You lot cannae hold yer liquor. I’m goin’ hame.’
‘Good, go. Just fuck off.’
Bang. The door would slam and out would walk one of Mum’s mates, taking with her a small splinter group of glassy-eyed song-singing desperados, heading to another house and another party and eventually another fight. Singing and annoying the neighbours as they went.
‘I belong tae Glasgow . . .’ The sounds of Scottish drinking songs fading into the next street as they staggered to another house, stopping to piss on people’s flowers along the way.
We would be in our rooms crying, not knowing what had gone wrong. Dot would sing to us to try to cover up the screams and shouts of the responsible adults in the other rooms.
In the morning we would go out to see what was left of the party, hoping for some food but normally there was just broken glass, empty bottles and cigarette butts everywhere. As I got a little older I remember sneaking out and
finding half-finished whiskies that I would drink before anyone woke up. The spiral had already started, it seemed.
Outside in the yard there would always be one or two of Dad’s mates passed out in the garden with the burning sun beating mercilessly down on them. I would just step over them and head out to play. It was just another year, the same as the one before and the one before that.
Dad’s drinking got worse, and life got harder and harder for Mum, and things started to disintegrate around us. The fights at the house started to happen more frequently.
Mum and Dad seemed to be too caught up in their own stuff to worry much about us and we were able to run around without any supervision. We sort of always did really when I think about it, but it happened even more now. I would come home with cuts and bruises and they wouldn’t notice. Before, Mum would have noticed when she bathed me but now we had to look after ourselves so she didn’t see them.
Like any kids, we wanted warm beds, food on the table and a chance not to be afraid. For a long time, Mum tried to make that happen. She knew that all our friends had television so she worked out how to get one for us. She found a place where you could rent a television very cheaply. Before then, we had TVs that worked then broke or were given away or even pawned. But this was a TV that Dad hadn’t organised. It was a rental and by all rights no one could pawn it.
Only one catch, though: you had to feed money into the back of the thing to keep it turned on. We had very little money so that meant very little television. If it wasn’t for the lack of coins to feed into it, it was because the electricity had been turned off because we couldn’t pay the bills. Sometimes it was the gas and Mum would scratch and save to get the service returned as soon as she could. But until then we would sit around with Mum in the dark, cold and afraid.
My little brother Alan was always really quiet. He played happily unless there were fights around the house, and as those fights became more frequent, Alan’s days of playing happily were taken from him. He became a very nervous young boy and would sit quietly and suck his thumb and curl his hair around his finger and pull it away, removing big chunks of hair. He had a big bald patch in the front of his head. Mum tried to stop him doing it; she hit him, she tried to shame him out of it, but that only made it worse. She even started painting his thumb with foul-tasting concoctions but she could not make him stop doing it. It didn’t work; he just kept sucking his thumb.
Working Class Boy Page 11
