by Petrea King
In Granny’s backyard stood a mighty mango tree. Each year it bore a heavy crop of delicious, juicy fruit which Ross, Brenden and I gorged ourselves upon as we sat among its branches. In a hollow at the base of its gnarled trunk, Peter made a fairies’ home complete with a little light that hung at its entrance above a white picket fence and gateway. Lying on my tummy, I could see deep into its magical interior: there were tiny chairs and a table with a red-checked gingham cloth, cups and saucers upon it. In my imagination, the fairies that he’d carefully carved and dressed came alive when I wasn’t looking. He’d created an enchanted world for me to inhabit—no wonder I felt so loved by him.
One afternoon, Granny asked me to waken Peter from his nap. I tried to gently rouse him, but he had already left for other horizons. He seemed so peaceful; it felt so right. I can’t recall the reactions of my mother and grandmother when I reported back—perhaps they protected me from their distress, which would have been a kindness.
His death remains in my memory as one of sweet calmness. I felt no fear, no distress. I had nothing but memories of loving him and being loved by him. After his death, I would bury my head in his clothes to catch a whiff of the remembering.
CHAPTER 2
Off to Sydney
In early 1957, I was uprooted from Brisbane as Geoff ’s employer, Exide Batteries, wanted him to start a branch in Sydney. He found a home for us in the leafy suburb of Artarmon, and we joined him some weeks later. This was an unwelcome adventure as it was hard to leave my beloved Granny, my refuge, behind.
I was also worried about ‘Mum’s bird’. On hearing the cooee-like call of a koel, Rae would always say, ‘It’s going to rain.’ And, sure enough, it would. This fixed her in my mind as a magical person who conversed with wild birds.
But how would the koel find us in Sydney? My mother reassured me by standing on the back porch and telling the koel the timeframe of our move and our new address in Artarmon. I was mightily impressed, but not nearly as impressed as when, a month or two later, I heard the koel’s call near our new home; my mother was clearly a woman of high powers.
I was in my teens before it occurred to me there was more than one koel and that rain often fell in Queensland!
***
Our relocation coincided with my first year of kindergarten at Artarmon Public School. Ross and Brenden were also enrolled there, and we used to walk together from home, though the boys would usually run ahead or hide from me. I remember those primary school years as being quite solitary, and I have no memory of spending time with my brothers in the playground. They were very active and close to each other, and I felt left out. They called me ‘bus face’ and ‘tree face’, which I tried to laugh about but found painful and isolating—no matter how I tried, I just couldn’t take their teasing in my stride. Their playful arrows always found their mark in my tender heart.
Rae often asked Ross or Brenden to turn on my bedroom light at night as I was scared of the dark. Regardless of how often it happened or how I would prepare myself, I never got used to one or other of them leaping out from behind my bedroom door to scare me. Every time I was reduced to a shaking heap, which did nothing to build my resilience, let alone confidence. I was terrified of monsters under my bed and wouldn’t let my feet protrude from the covers for fear of them being eaten.
While my brothers thought their teasing was fun, I became more anxious and worried about my sense of belonging. It was obvious to me from an early age that, in our household, men were more important than women and, as a little girl, I found it difficult to see any place for me in the family. Men’s time, ideas, needs and desires were far more important than Rae’s or mine, and getting things wrong or upsetting Geoff was to be avoided at all costs. Geoff had a short fuse, so we all tiptoed around him. Accidentally bumping his bed while he was reading the newspaper could unleash a torrent of terrifying rage.
One day, when Ross and Brenden were quarrelling, as brothers do, over some triviality, Geoff insisted on them having a fistfight in our lounge room to establish a winner. Neither of them were the least bit interested in fighting, but Geoff wouldn’t take no for an answer, goading them relentlessly into violence. He insisted that my mother and I sit and watch them fight. I felt helpless and very small as my beloved brothers—their boyish chests exposed, their fists clenched—started dancing around the lounge room, jabbing at each other. Of course, Rae’s and my distress went unnoticed in all the hubbub.
That time, my existence was inconsequential, but I didn’t always escape Geoff ’s anger.
Early one Sunday morning, during a council clean-up, my brothers and I went around the neighbourhood to look for discarded treasures. We gathered enough bits and pieces to suffice as musical instruments and created a cacophony of sound that delighted only our ears. I had no idea that what we’d thought of as simple fun could provoke rage in Geoff until, on returning home, we were greeted with the strap.
I fronted up for the strap first, and then it was Brenden’s turn. I sobbed and sobbed because I wanted my father to give me a double dose rather than hurt my beloved Brenden. While he was full of noise, energy and life, I sensed a fragility in him that needed protection, and it broke my heart to think of him being physically punished.
Only in his later years did Geoff share with us some of the appalling things he had seen and done during the war. He suffered from nightmares throughout his life, often waking in a lather of sweat and anxiety. I’d have loved to have known then what I know now about the awful impact trauma has on a person’s life, but as a child, I was helpless in the face of his outbursts and bluster; his numb silences were somehow even more frightening.
***
A stark contrast to the ferment of our home life was our regular attendance at our local church. All five of us went to morning service each week, first at the Congregational Church in Chatswood and then, a couple of years later, at St Stephens Church of England in Willoughby, where my mother was baptised back into the Christian faith.
One Sunday when I was six years old, I plucked up the courage to ask the minister some questions. He towered above me in his long white robe as I said, ‘What’s behind the stars?’ Without hesitation, he responded that God had placed all the stars in heaven inside a large egg.
Confused but undaunted, I continued, ‘And how did Adam and Eve get here?’ He looked down at me from his great height and answered, ‘God put them in a big egg.’
I was incredulous. Was he lying to me? I asked, ‘How did they get out of the egg?’ From his lofty viewpoint, he replied, ‘God gave them a hammer and a chisel.’
I was confused. I knew in my bones that what he said wasn’t true, but perhaps I was somehow unworthy even to ask these questions. For the first time, I felt a sense of betrayal. A man of God was lying to me—and, clearly, he had an egg fetish. A conspiracy was going on here, and I was forbidden to know the facts. I was already feeling nervous about what life meant and what my purpose could possibly be, so this caused me to retreat further into my inner world, making me even more isolated than before.
This minister also taught me that if I didn’t ask Jesus Christ into my heart, I would gnash my teeth for all eternity and burn forever in hell. I already ground my teeth at night—was this a sign that I was preparing for my fate?
I immediately welcomed Jesus in, so I had ticked that box, but then I was racked with worry because my beloved Granny, given her dunking to become Jewish, wasn’t the least bit interested in religion. Scared of the monsters beneath my bed, I still spent hours on my knees at night, praying for the miracle of her conversion. When I would tell her, ‘Granny, you only need to ask Jesus once into your heart,’ she would laugh and say, ‘Don’t you worry, darling, I’ll be with all my friends.’ This gave me no comfort at all, and I fretted mightily at the idea of her experiencing eternal damnation and suffering. I fretted too over all the children in Africa who had never heard of Jesus and who were likewise condemned to hell. I couldn’t understand the injustices in th
e world, the awful cruelty I saw against people, animals and the environment.
Brenden was also worried about damnation. He’d asked our minister if thoughts were as bad as actions, only to be told, ‘Yes, they are one and the same.’ He then had nightmares because he’d thought about taking money from Rae’s purse or some other such crime that would condemn him to eternal burning and teeth-gnashing.
I have no idea why he and I took the world so literally when others seemed able to shake off what didn’t suit them. But when I was seven, I had a strange but reassuring experience that enabled me to sack the God of the egg-fetish minister.
I was running around the side of our home in Artarmon with my pet dachshund, Brynner, when the entire physical world suddenly became completely insubstantial. I became rooted to the spot as I experienced everything within and around me as an interconnected, blissful energetic whole—there was no separation between me, Brynner, the earth, the sky and the trees. A blindingly beautiful light enlivened everything. The physical world was simply a dance of energy held within this blissfully beneficent light. I had witnessed the ‘hand inside the glove’: the ‘glove’ being the physical world, the ‘hand’ being that which gave life to everything. I had an unshakeable certainty born of the knowledge that the material world was transient while the invisible world was wondrous and eternal.
As a child, I didn’t share this divine encounter with anyone because I had no words even to vaguely describe its intensity. While it was sublime, and I knew the truth of what I’d experienced, I didn’t know how to reconcile this with the outer reality of my life. I tucked it away as a private but sustaining treasure for many years.
***
Animals and nature became my passions, and we were blessed as children to have an array of pets in our suburban garden that included kangaroos, a lamb, snakes, rabbits, hamsters, lizards, parrots, quail, bees, budgerigars and mice, along with the more traditional cats and dogs. I dreamed of becoming a game warden in Africa and spent hours studying animal behaviour in encyclopaedias.
In 1959, my father took up a management position at a transport company. On two occasions, when a truck driver killed a roo, Geoff brought home a joey that had survived in the pouch. We raised one, Josie, to adulthood while the other died from cold on a stormy night when the pilot light of the gas heater blew out; given her lack of fur, she was probably too young for anyone but her mother to raise.
Each morning, Josie would ascend our sixteen back steps, sideways and one at a time, to come into my bedroom and wake me up. She would climb onto my bed and settle herself comfortably while I read, went back to sleep or scratched her behind the ears. Josie and I became the best of friends. Animals seemed far more predictable and constant than humans in their affections.
In my six or seven years with Josie, we had many adventures together. She would regularly get out of our suburban garden and lead me on a merry chase through Artarmon, Chatswood and Willoughby. I would fret mightily until her return. We were all in awe of Josie’s ability—despite traffic, dogs barking, people shouting and other disorienting factors—to find her way back to our garden.
One time, when I was beside myself with worry, my parents and I went out in the car looking for Josie. We stopped every now and then to ask pedestrians, ‘Excuse me, have you seen our kangaroo?’ only to be told, ‘Yes, she went down that road,’ or ‘Around that corner.’ But we couldn’t catch up with her. Eventually, my parents decided we should go home for a cup of tea. I couldn’t believe they would want tea in the middle of this all-consuming catastrophe! As we pulled up outside our house, there was Josie, sitting behind our low front gate as if to say, ‘What’s the fuss?’
Josie grew to adulthood and thrived but, as she matured, we realised she wasn’t Josie but Joseph. And he took a keen interest in Rae when she was hanging out the washing at the Hills hoist. Sadly, his amorous intentions sealed his fate. After he knocked her flat behind a flapping bed sheet, Joseph was dispatched to a nearby nature park at Ku-ring-gai Chase. It was very funny to see people do double takes as we drove up the Pacific Highway with Joseph hanging his head out the window, enjoying the breeze.
My love for animals knew no bounds, so I was delighted when our local Sunday school decided to have its annual picnic at Taronga Zoo. After we’d eaten together, we kids were allowed to wander around and view the animals for hours with no adult supervision—things were certainly different in the 1950s! We just had to be back in time to leave on the bus. This freedom suited me and a small group of companions as we set off on our adventure. Before long, my friends kept racing ahead while I was quite happy to sit and study each animal.
By the time I’d found my way to the rhinoceros cage, I was alone. This enclosure was at the far end of an unattractive cement walkway that passed equally unattractive cement cages. As I drew closer, I could see that the two rhinos had been fighting. One was lying down with a trickle of blood running from the base of its horn to its lip. The other was on the far side of the enclosure, standing up but with its head lowered, snorting and occasionally pawing at the ground.
A small area of the enclosure’s very strong crisscross wire had been cut away so that food could be put inside. Quick as a flash, I scrambled through this hole and, with hanky in hand, approached the rhino lying on its side. It didn’t fret or even move as I dabbed at the blood on its face, or when I sat on its sizeable jaw to do a better job.
I was only there for a few minutes before someone raised the alarm. Shouting zookeepers descended from everywhere. I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, but they ordered me to climb back through the hole, then marched me up to the office where I was banned from ever coming to the zoo again without the supervision of my parents. I was mortified and confused—I had just been trying to help.
Another time, in teeming rain, I rescued a bedraggled galah swinging precariously from the overhead electrical wires. We’d arrived home in the car and my family had dashed inside out of the downpour, but I had stayed to call out, ‘Scratch, cocky!’ to this waterlogged creature, who flew clumsily onto my shoulder.
Fred was obviously somebody’s pet, but no one claimed him, so he lived with us for several years. He sat on my shoulder and nibbled my ear while I was reading, and I could walk around the house with him quite content to join in whatever my activities might be. Then Fred laid an egg and so became Freda; I obviously had a lot to learn about picking the sex of an animal.
***
A life among animals appealed to me partly because I found human behaviour far too frightening and confusing. Animals seemed far more predictable and trustworthy. Deliberate cruelty was extremely hard for me to bear, and I sometimes felt others’ pain as if it were happening inside my own body. This hypersensitivity drew me to the underdog, the mocked, the deformed, the disabled, the forgotten.
I still often questioned whether I had been born into the right family, and I began to wonder if my parents or brothers ever asked existential questions too. Soon, Brenden and I began having conversations about how weird we thought the world was—it turned out that he had also never felt as though a ‘normal’ life was his destiny. But I usually couldn’t talk to him for too long because his moods fluctuated from morose to hyperactive.
I would often slip away to the nursing home at the top of our street. There I would tidy up the drawers in the old people’s bedside cabinets and do other chores for them. They didn’t talk much—sometimes not at all—but I found their company more tolerable than being at home where things were so emotionally volatile.
On one of our visits to family still living in Queensland, Geoff ’s sister, my Aunty Gwen, sat me down in what seemed like a cavernous armchair and taught me to relax. Aunty Gwen was a well-known theatre director and she told me that actors used these techniques to settle their nerves before venturing on stage. She asked me to close my eyes and focus my attention on my inward and outward breath. Aunty Gwen told me to breathe in while she counted to four, hold for two counts and then brea
the out while she again counted to four. I don’t know how long she did this for, but I entered a safe and calm space that felt wonderfully peaceful. This was my first experience of meditation, and I have always been grateful to her for giving me the gift of inner calm at a time when I sorely lacked it.
Another important person in my childhood was my godmother, Jean, the teacher who had befriended my mother. Only a few years lay between them, and they had formed a deep connection born of a shared understanding about feeling awkward: Rae because of her conversion to Judaism, and Jean because of her own difficult upbringing.
After Jean married and moved onto a farm at Cassilis, we frequently spent holidays there. These were very happy times that cemented my love of animals and living on the land; and, given that Geoff rarely accompanied us, there was a certain carefreeness and freedom that we three kids relished. Occasionally, I holidayed alone with Jean and her family, and I enjoyed horseriding, mustering, milking the goats and generally being involved in farm life, which was such a contrast to my home life. I sensed that Jean’s family had some relationship tensions too, but I did my best to avoid these issues and only came to understand them better as I grew older.
No one except Brenden knew anything about my fiercely guarded private world, which was very much at odds with the image I tried so hard to present to others. Feeling awkward in social situations, I did my best to be invisible at home and at school.
And yet somehow I became a social activist.
When I was about nine years old, a serious car accident took place at the crossroads, a few doors down from our house. I was there in a flash, kneeling beside the injured man. He lay half in and half out of the car, unconscious and having a seizure. Adults stood around, seemingly content to watch this man’s nightmare unfold; I couldn’t understand why they weren’t doing anything. I put a stick between the man’s teeth to stop him from biting his tongue and kept his head safe until the ambulance arrived.
