Hellbent: Ces Waters & Me

by Margaret Wentworth

  Violence seemed to impel mum to move house. We stacked our belongings on the handcart and headed to Cecil Street, but one of the wheels came off under the weight. It tipped, spewing our belongings over road and footpath. Sylvia snatched up her Scots doll and cuddled it. When pedestrians stopped to help, dad turned to mum, ‘Did this have to happen? Does everyone have to see what we haven’t got?’

  A change of location meant a change of schools, so Sylvia, Barbie and I were transferred to one in Ducie Avenue, within walking distance. But the journey was often nerve wracking. The man next door owned a frisky goat which he kept loose in his backyard. Occasionally it would escape to the street, and, if we happened to be walking to school at the time, the goat would charge us. Running was a problem with callipers. Several times the goat bailed us up against a wall, butting us with its curved horns. I’d face the wall so my manhood was protected.

  I loved animals, especially cuddly varieties. I was thrilled to be given a little terrier I named Peggy. We had tremendous fun together going for walks and playing. Peggy had the quaint habit of standing on her back legs with her front paws waving in the air. When I was due to return home from school or an outing, Sylvia would sing to the little dog: ‘Peggy Peggy Peggy Peggy, what what what what, say so why so Cee-cil.’ Peggy would go tearing down the road wagging her tail. When I saw this little whirlwind charging towards me I’d shriek with laughter; then Peggy would jump into my arms, barking and licking my face with wild excitement.

  Some months later I saw my father walking down the street with one of his drinking mates. My dog was on a leash trotting beside him. I hurried over. Dad told me he was taking Peggy to the dentist to have her teeth fixed and that she’d be gone for a couple of days. I looked up into dad’s eyes, wanting to believe him. He sharply turned away and walked off, pulling a now reluctant Peggy. I felt something was wrong. Sure enough, I never saw Peggy again. Dad sold her for beer money.

  Another Peggy, Peggy Potts, a neighbourhood girl I played with, was not to be trusted. She got cross when I teased her once and ran to her place, so I went home too. Shortly there was a knock at the door and I peeked through the keyhole. She knew I was there and began to abuse me. I had just withdrawn my eye when a long thin knife blade jabbed through the keyhole, puncturing the side of my nose a smidgen from my eye. I carry the scar. Peggy was to carry a scar too. Her hair got entangled in a machine and wrenched from her scalp, the trauma destroying her senses of taste and smell.

  I preferred hanging out with brothers Arthur Bing and Owen Bong Crosby, local thieves. They once stole a ukulele and gave it to me because I loved George Formby, ukulele player, singer and comedian. `Where did you get that?’ said dad. ‘Bing and Bong found it.’ He was wise to me and smirking, smashed it over my head.

  How I hated dad! His discipline was based on the idea he was smarter than me. But when I smelt beer on his breath all I knew was that he was stronger and I was a cowardly trembling weak victim he could humiliate. I yearned to be older and more powerful than him. As a disciplinarian he ruled by fear, not respect, and was violent and harsh, not fair. I was punished for being caught, not for being wrong. His judgement was too often clouded by alcohol, bitterness, poverty and his unhappy life. As I grew dad unwittingly nurtured the rebel in me, based on hatred, distrust and defiance of authority. It was Me and Them from the start. Escaping from dad’s nasty mood one day I raced into the street as fast as my callipers could carry me, but of course he caught me. He belted me against a wall, kicked me. I tried not to cry but I lost control. A teacher from Ducie Avenue School cycled towards us. She dismounted and confronted dad, ‘You horrid, horrid person! How dare you strike that child!’ She belted him across the shoulders with an umbrella. I ran to school.

  When I went to bed that night I was still feeling hurt and angry about the cruel way dad had behaved. I put my head under the bedclothes and said over and over again, ‘I’m not going to cry any more. I’m tough!’ I put my forefinger in my mouth and bit the knuckle until it hurt so much my eyes began to water. I blocked my emotions by sighing heavily. The pain soon became strangely distant; I was in more control now. It no longer mattered how much dad tried to hurt me. I’d never cry again.

  6 Hard Times

  It was the best of times, it was

  the worst of times, it was the age

  of wisdom, it was the age of

  foolishness, it was the epoch of

  incredulity, it was the season of

  Light, it was the season of Darkness,

  it was the spring of hope, it was

  the winter of despair …

  Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

  John and I aspired to be a great film-making team but reality forced us on the dole. And I was pregnant again. We worked just as hard as ever trying to launch our many projects but competition was fierce and we weren’t making much progress. It was difficult being an Australian working from home, trying to attract the attention of large American distributors. Every time John couriered a script to LA or rang American distributors or agents such as the Creative Artists Agency, we felt more of our precious housekeeping money drain away. Occasionally a distributor would wax lyrical about one of our scripts but unless we had star names attached, they weren’t prepared to even discuss the matter further. To get actors of influence involved approaching their powerful agents, who weren’t very excited about doing business with small operators like us with only one feature film and a doco to our credit and little cash-flow. However, John was passionate about proving himself as a feature film director. ‘Just one good film,’ John would often say, ‘can set you up for life. We’ve got to hang in there because we’ve got the talent.’ If only we had the connections as well.

  We hung in there, trying hard. Time and time again we bashed our heads on brick walls. John flew to Los Angeles when a distributor liked one of our scripts, but the businessman stood John up. Twice. He didn’t even have the courage to be frank. Yet he was on the Board of the American Film Marketing Association. In LA, they call this sort of thing ‘tough business’. I would watch the frustration building up in John. I felt powerless to help as I had my hand’s full caring for the young and old, as well as researching Ces’s book.

  A break eventually came our way with an Australian Broadcasting Commission presale to produce a documentary on the Australian Surf Lifesaving Association. This involved gaining an intimate knowledge of the Manly Surf Lifesaving Club, dominated at the time by the competitive Ironman heroes Guy Leech and Craig Riddington. I waddled about helping behind the scenes, my tummy out like a torpedo, and wheeling a stroller containing a chubby-cheeked toddler; not quite the right image for an efficient production assistant.

  John was an excellent house husband, even a bit over the top. So what if things were stuffed in drawers instead of neatly folded? I was happy enough to be banned from the laundry because of underfilling or overfilling the tub, wasting soap powder and other sins. (Pity I wasn’t banned from the kitchen too.) Chatswood shopkeepers knew him as a house husband from hell.

  But cars turned John into Conan the Barbarian. Quick and alert at the wheel, he’d change lanes efficiently and expertly, yell at sleepyheads in other cars and fidget at red traffic lights like they were part of an English plot to thwart the progress of the Irish. Our son Dean wrote, ‘When dad drives, he shouts a lot,’ in a Year 3 essay. One morning on the busy Pacific Highway, returning from our twice-weekly visit to the pool, he was cut off dangerously and forced to brake so hard the car stank of burning rubber. John got mad. He overtook the offending motorist and cut him off savagely and dangerously. Both cars stopped on a red in suburban Chatswood. The other driver got out, stepped up to John’s open window and swiped John’s sunglasses off without a word, then got back in his car, looking smug. John’s nose was cut but worse, out of joint. He leapt out in his Speedos and attempted to punch his way into the other guy’s car in front of six lanes of banked up traffic, while I squirmed in embarrassment. A green light
ended the spectacle.

  Or would have if police hadn’t arrived at our door a week later with a summons for dangerous driving. The other driver’s statement admitted ‘brushing’ a hand across John’s face in protest. A month later John was in a three-piece suit at court. The other driver and his solicitor didn’t recognise him, thought John was John’s solicitor and John wasn’t about to enlighten them. He told them ‘his client’ was using the admission as the basis for cross-action for assault. Plaintiff and lawyer went into a huddle, returning to ask the best way to settle out of court. The sage counsellor suggested his client might be prepared to accept an apology by phone, might even be persuaded to do likewise. Within a day or two, both men were chatting on the phone like two small boys commiserating after a school caning. There’s a small boy in every man.

  7 Gutter

  `We’re depraved on acounta we’re deprived.’

  gang member, Leonard Bernstein, West Side Story

  In 1935, when I was eight, we collected our belongings yet again and combed the streets for a new place to live. Mum wanted to return to Chorlton-on-Medlock. We found a house at 29 Cottenham Street. Dad was thrilled with its location because the St George and the Dragon Hotel was on the corner.

  The house had two large bedrooms upstairs and two rooms down. The inside was very sparse; we never had any nice furniture. This was because of the destruction that occurred every Saturday night when dad really hit the booze. He’d smash pots, furniture, windows and any other objects that shattered with a sound explosive enough to match his aggression. Broken windows were always a problem. I reckon that we used more cardboard in ours than anyone else in Medlock.

  It must have been soul-destroying for poor mum trying to keep her house in order and prevent those biting cold winds from whistling down the corridors. One day the alcoholic ex-husband who she’d left, John Joseph Monaghan, came to the house in a drunken rage and smashed in all the windows. Dad wanted to go downstairs to confront him but mum somehow prevented this because she didn’t want a bloody showdown.

  One piece of furniture survived: the old ramshackle piano. It gave us years of pleasure, though my attempts to play it were without much success. On reflection, it’s surprising that its wooden frame didn’t end up as firewood. We often ran short of coal and mum wouldn’t hesitate to rip doors off cupboards, prise up loose floor planks or take the internal kitchen door from its hinges; keeping her family warm on a freezing winter’s night.

  A Jewish kid taught me a how to get coal for nothing. He would go to the railway embankment where smooth large stones lay. We called thein `godstones’ because they shone in the sun and seemed to come from heaven. When a steam train shunted past, he threw one at the driver or fireman. They could only retaliate by throwing lumps of coal. I gathered them up for our fire.

  Money was always in short supply, so sometimes mum had to stoop to very desperate measures. Sometimes on a Monday she’d hand me a parcel to take to the local pawn shop, Mark Coyne’s. Inside would be freshly laundered sheets and blankets. Once, her bundle even included dad’s best brown suit and shoes. Mum’s plan was to reclaim these items that Friday when dad received payment for the odd jobs he’d done.

  I dreaded waiting in the long queue outside the pawn shop for all the world to see how destitute we were. Sometimes I’d see neighbours and friends standing in line, looking equally self-conscious. They’d whisper they were only there to pawn something for a friend. Such was the stigma of that queue. Despite the obvious poverty in our neighbourhood, we were still proud people wanting to preserve every ounce of dignity that we could.

  Inside were two cubicles, manned by Mark Coyne and his brother. I’d put my bundle on top of the high wooden counter and then watch the broker’s eyes as he undid it and examined the goods inside. Both Mark and his brother were posh, mean people who derived considerable satisfaction from paying a pittance for our goods. They knew we’d have to accept their price.

  Mark’s lips would curl up as if I was a leper and he’d announce emphatically, ‘Two and six.’ The words would strike fear in me because I knew the value was about four shillings. But there were no negotiations. I’d reach up to the counter to get my money and the ticket of sale. On the way home I’d feel angry and annoyed because I never ended up with the amount mum asked for. As I grew, my hatred for Mark Coyne and his brother intensified. I was determined to one day get even with these pawnbrokers who seemed to earn their living by robbing from the poor.

  There were no hot water taps so in between our once-weekly immersions, we did a lot of strip washing at the sink. Sometimes we’d turn the taps on and water wouldn’t come out because it was frozen. My sisters were quite fussy and insisted on warm water heated in the large iron kettle. When my older half-brother Bill stayed with us, Bill and I proudly showed how tough we were by splashing the icy cold water over us. We made sure we attracted a suitably impressed audience to justify the unpleasant experience.

  As there were no showers, the Friday night bath was quite a ceremony. Mum would put a penny in the gas meter, heat up water in the large iron kettle and then pour it into a steel bath which had been put in front of the fire. Sylvia, Barbie and I would crowd into the bath with great excitement. We’d rub ourselves with a red carbolic soap—good for cleansing the skin but terrible if splashed into eyes, causing them to smart and burn. Quiet bath games were therefore preferable.

  It was a golden opportunity to take an inquisitive look at my sisters’ anatomy. Even better were baths on the visits of female relations. I’d spy through the keyhole.

  While mum cooked dinner we’d all gather for her stories about Granny Gilbert or her own childhood or ghosts. Our main source of entertainment was radio. Whenever George Formby, my hero, sang I’d sing along too, and once stayed up to 3 am to hear Joe Lewis fight Tommy Farr for the heavyweight world crown. Boxing was an interest I shared with dad.

  When we heard dad returning Sylvia, Barbie and I would dash for the back door and hang around the street for an hour or two, until mum came out and waved us in, indicating dad had finished his tea and fallen asleep in a stupor.

  My sisters and I shared one large bed. Despite the coal fire in the bedroom it was often so cold we’d wear day clothes and huddle for warmth. We’d wake to the sound of The Knocker Up, a man with a long pole for lighting and snuffing out the gas lights. He’d tap on upstairs windows for a few pence a week because no-one could afford alarm clocks. It was common for Knockers Up Kitty Hogg and Lilly Lavine to have wild brawls and break windows in their territorial feud, a 5 am right banjo-ing. Within an hour of The Knocker’s tap there’d be an unearthly sound on the cobblestones: rough men in cheese-cutter hats and women in shawls wearing clogs of wood, leather and steel, going to the mills. Those clogs lasted ages. And each Sunday, on vacant ground, there’d be a clog-kicking contest. Panky White and Clodhopper Moof and others would hold each other’s shoulders and kick the other’s shins. At lunchtime young female workers sat on landings, dangling their shapely legs in the incongruous clogs, drank tea with condensed milk, ate sandwiches, giggled and afforded me the odd glimpse of pretty thigh.

  Some weekends I’d either visit Granny Gilbert or Granny Ada. It was difficult for a small boy to come to terms with all the tension that tainted such visits. Granny Gilbert disowned my mother for living with dad, Granny Ada disowned my father for living with mum. Both grannies were pretty well off and we were very hard-up.

  I enjoyed my visits to Granny Ada. Mum was not permitted to enter her premises so I had to go there by tram unaccompanied. Granny Ada was refined and ladylike with her bonnets and ribbons, print dresses and frills. She was slim, with high cheekbones and round eyes as prominent features of her pretty yet gaunt face. Granny Ada had a lovely voice and still maintained a theatrical, vaudevillian attitude to life. She’d burst into song at the least possible excuse, or if she was walking to the kitchen she might try a little soft-shoe shuffle.

  Granny Ada lived in Gallemore Street, which backed ont
o the local river. It was a poor area but she always kept her house immaculate and attractively furnished with polished wood and gleaming antiques. Sometimes I’d walk to the end of Gallemore Street to look at the Salford River. Mosquitoes would swarm on my bare limbs. As I continually slapped myself and stamped my legs, I’d see a slow-moving thick sludge of filth decorated by bottles, paper and junk. Huge well-fed rats came out of the sewers and splashed into the river.

  Although all her children had long since grown up, Granny Ada wasn’t alone. She was raising a quiet handsome boy called Tut (short for Tutankhamen) who was a couple of years younger than me. I was told Tut’s father was a sailor away at sea so I never understood where Tut fitted into the family picture because his mother, Amy Quick, was no relation. She was one of dad’s girlfriends who’d witnessed mum’s fury and had learned to keep her distance from our house. Amy occasionally visited Granny Ada to share a jug of ale.

  Granny Ada made cakes and gave me the mixing bowl afterwards so that I could scoop the remnants out with a gooey finger. She liked to drink and would send Tut and me down to the off-licence with a jug to be filled with mild bitter beer. Her serious parting words were always, ‘Don’t let him give you too much froth!’ She also enjoyed snuff. This intrigued me so much that when she wasn’t looking one time, I grabbed her snuff box and had a quick snort. The powder stung my nose and made me sneeze uncontrollably. I concluded adults had weird habits which I might never understand.