by Petrea King
The next day, I wrote to the council about the need for a stop sign at the intersection of Tindale and Shepherd roads, where accidents frequently happened. Their reply shocked me: apparently there had been ‘insufficient fatalities’ to erect a sign at that corner. In frustration, I retrieved a can of red paint and a brush from under our house and painted a line across the road and the stop sign myself.
Animal rights also concerned me, but while I read voraciously about game-hunting and poaching in Africa and India, I knew there was little I could do to help. Instead, I wrote a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald about finding a way to transport grass clippings from the city to drought-stricken areas where sheep were starving; I was pleased when my letter was published but frustrated by their reply about slow combustion dangers that prohibited the transport of grass.
I also wrote to Taronga Zoo about the way they confined sea snakes and other animals to pitifully small or inappropriate enclosures, but their response was only that they required more funds before animals could be housed more appropriately.
Later, when I was eleven or twelve, I established the first branch of the World Wildlife Fund in Australia and felt empowered to do something practical to help animals when the forms and badges arrived from England. I enrolled a couple of members, but then other events overtook me. I sadly returned what had been sent to me with a letter of apology for starting something I couldn’t continue.
***
Brenden and I grew closer, and we had many conversations about the suffering we saw in the world. Our inner lives were in sharp contrast to the middle-class suburbia around us. We both felt the pain of others intensely, and we worried about how we could make a difference to issues like starvation and poverty when we were so helpless and small.
Meanwhile, our family continued to talk about what we thought or believed but never about how we felt—we had no collective vocabulary for feelings. Our Sunday lunches exemplified the subterranean nature of emotions in our household.
All five of us would attend church to sing in the choir while the lamb cooked by faith at home in the oven. On our return, I would scamper down to the backyard to pick the fresh mint growing under the regular drip of the tap; I would chop it up finely while its heavenly scent mixed with the aroma of the roasting lamb. The table would be set with a white damask cloth and matching napkins, and Spode china and silverware laid out neatly for five places. Geoff would ceremoniously carve the lamb at the table as we helped ourselves to veggies, gravy and mint sauce from the rose-patterned dishes.
And then we would wait for the bomb to explode.
Brenden would relentlessly tap his fingers on the table or rock in his chair, tipping it onto its back legs. Geoff would tell him to stop. That was a sure-fire way of getting attention, so Brenden kept aggravating Geoff until his patience was sapped. He would shout at Brenden and then, perhaps jumping to his feet, banish him from the table.
I would shrivel down into my chair, terrified by the violence of the outburst, the lamb a flavourless, dried-out ball of inedible fibre rolling around in my miserable mouth. Fortunately, our dog Brynner knew the deal and would wait patiently under the table for my spat-out offerings.
The meal would finish in deafening silence and, as soon as possible, we all escaped to our rooms or outside with the animals to recover.
***
I don’t remember how I broke my arm, but I do remember my complete inability to speak up loudly enough for the pain of the greenstick fracture to be addressed. I told my mother that my arm was sore, then two weeks went by before I managed to make the true pain known and for the subsequent X-rays and sling to be administered. My lack of complaint was part of a deeply ingrained pattern that kept me trapped in a stifled silence. I felt that Brenden’s needs always outweighed my own.
One grey and dismal afternoon Brenden and I were in our secret cubby under our house when my world irrevocably shifted on its axis. We were sitting on thick old phone books in our secret play area, which was inhabited only by a damp mustiness and the occasional funnel-web spider. Brenden was almost eleven and I was nine and a half when he told me that he knew he had to kill himself by the time he was thirty. The filtered light from the holes in the air vents did nothing to lighten the load I took on that day.
My purpose in life was now clear: I was born to keep Brenden safe, to ensure he would never fulfil this dreadful commitment. I remember thinking, I have to grow up really quickly so I can look after Brenden. It didn’t occur to me to share his words with Rae, and certainly not Geoff or Ross, so their weight fell squarely on my shoulders.
At the time, Brenden and I were still at Artarmon Public School, while Ross had moved on to Chatswood High. Ross and Brenden maintained a close relationship, but Ross and I hardly ever interacted. My world revolved around Brenden with a strange mixture of fear, anxiety and love. I barely knew Ross as he was always so active, and he wasn’t around when Brenden and I shared our confidences. We each had a powerful relationship with Brenden but a far more tenuous one with each other.
I didn’t tell anyone about Brenden’s declaration, an almighty burden for an anxious little girl to carry. His words about killing himself gave meaning and purpose to my existence and I didn’t feel able to share the knowledge.
***
In 1964, I entered Queenwood School for Girls in Mosman. Within weeks of starting, I fainted during morning assembly—my appendix was about to rupture, necessitating its urgent removal. Once I’d recovered, I tried hard to blend in with the other girls, but they all exuded a confidence that I completely lacked. Their cliques were already well-established, as many of them had been at Queenwood since kindergarten.
Though I was very small for my age, I was a nimble runner, and winning at school sports carnivals was my forte.
But I also remember overhearing two teachers talking about me in the playground, one trying to describe me to the other by saying, ‘You know the one, that mousy-haired, sickly-looking child.’ These words left me feeling even more flawed and deficient. The teacher named out loud how I saw myself: pale, sickly, ugly and the runt of the litter.
I was a keen student and full of questions, but not helped by my small Austrian science teacher who told me I would go mad if I continued to ask so many of them. My English teacher, Mrs Rose, was my favourite—she saw something in me worth cultivating and was very kind to me. She encouraged my love of writing and literature, and my escape into the world of books afforded me considerable comfort.
I also became tremendously fond of classical music. I could sit for hours on the lounge-room floor in front of the radiogram speakers, listening to Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 or Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor over and over again. The strong romanticism of such works felt like a balm to me; with the volume turned up as high as I was allowed, they drowned out every thought. Such music conveyed a powerful emotional expression that delighted and comforted me.
Occasionally, my mother would sing a solo piece with the church choir’s backing or she would sing in some other setting. I adored the warmth and depth of her voice and its resonance nourished my inner being in mysterious and unspeakable ways.
But it was often easier to access books than music. Geoff had changed jobs again, this time moving into managing the retail division of Angus & Robertson on Castlereagh Street. It was in this shop that my great love of books was nurtured through the advice of Mrs Rose and my own adventures.
Shops traditionally closed at midday on Saturdays, which meant my family could have the whole place to ourselves on rainy Saturday afternoons. Geoff would pull back the mighty timber and glass sliding door to reveal the dark interior full of mysteries to be discovered. The lights would flicker on, revealing the vastness of the shop’s interior and, slipping inside, we would fan out to wherever our interests lay, while my father worked upstairs in his office. We’d meet there at 3.30 pm for cheese and Jatz biscuits.
It was both eerie and wonderful to have this cavernous space full of
the undiscovered written word at our disposal. Tall timber ladders led to the higher shelves, and I’d perch on a rung, pulling out whichever books captured my interest. I was enthralled by the whiff of new books and the information they contained. The solitude and echoing silence intensified the wonder of my explorations about animals, medicine, nature, science, astronomy and birds.
In my father’s office, a secret door led to a small turret that housed nothing but a desk and a chair. In times long gone, Geoff told us, the inebriated Henry Lawson would arrive at the front sales desk with a new manuscript tucked under his arm, demanding to see the publisher. Henry was never satisfied with the sales clerk’s claim that the publisher wasn’t in, and he would insist upon lurching unsteadily up the stairs to see for himself. The clerk pressed a bell under the front counter that rang in the publisher’s office, providing sufficient time for him to slip through the secret door to the turret where he could continue working. Henry would burst into the office only to find it frustratingly empty.
This lovely titbit of history was demolished with that beautiful building in Castlereagh Street many decades ago. But my love of books remains.
***
I was never sure why, but on the completion of my first year at Queenwood, the principal suggested I find a school closer to home in Artarmon. This deepened my sense of not belonging anywhere—I believed that she saw how inept I was as a human being, lacking in any potential. My parents decided that I should attend Chatswood High School, where Ross and Brenden were already enrolled.
In early 1964, Geoff and Rae established their own book-publishing business, the Australian and New Zealand Book Company Pty Ltd. As it was based in Chatswood, my brothers and I would often go there after school to pick out orders, pack books, collate catalogues or help my parents however we could.
Around this time I had a growth spurt which led to sore feet and legs. The one activity I was good at—running races—became impossible. Since Brenden had told me about his suicide plan and I’d urged myself to ‘grow up quickly’, I’d gone from being small for my age to shooting up by 23 centimetres. Considering I’m just 156 centimetres tall now, it was a substantial amount! Painful calluses developed on the balls of my feet; then, a few months later, my knees swivelled inwards and began dislocating.
I was only a couple of months into the rough and tumble of Year 8 at a large public school, where I found the sheer number of students overwhelming. While I did my best to fit in, my sense of being different was all pervading. Given that my running prowess was gone, I didn’t feel I had much to contribute to school life, and being on crutches occasionally made me the subject of ridicule.
My inner world was completely at odds with the outer appearance I tried hard to promote. I felt painfully shy and inadequate and ached for an escape to another way of being, so I was relieved when I couldn’t continue my schooling due to my inability to walk. The pain and swelling from the dislocations seemed a tiny price to pay for my freedom.
CHAPTER 3
The bones of my story
1964
Months of physio and daily swimming in the Balmoral Baths did nothing to fix my legs. Clearly, something was amiss with my hormones and ligaments. My joints were unstable and unusually flexible—so flexible that they couldn’t stabilise my knees.
Finally my orthopaedic doctor, John McGlynn, decided that surgery was the only option. So began three years of surgeries in which my femurs were cut and my lower legs rotated outwards by eleven degrees and then plated into place; three months later my tibias were cut and my lower legs were rotated inwards by nine degrees until my legs were more or less straight. John transplanted tendons below my knees to account for the changes in bone alignment, and several of the leg muscles were shortened or lengthened.
Dalcross Hospital in Killara became my home away from home for months at a time. It wasn’t a children’s hospital, and so from the age of thirteen I was plunged into the world of adults. This was a huge relief to me, as I didn’t feel emotionally equipped to grow through my teen years and was far more comfortable in adult company. I hadn’t the stamina to match my peers and wasn’t interested in the things that preoccupied them—I had no breasts nor any sign they might materialise, no periods, no boyfriend—and not much interest in having one, due to my extreme shyness.
I attempted correspondence lessons to continue my schooling, but the trauma of the multiple surgeries, the ensuing painful cramps and the endless physio made it impossible to keep going. My formal schooling effectively finished when I was thirteen.
This didn’t bother me. I’d been bored by school lessons; my existence and purpose were far more tantalising subjects, along with nature, animals, spirituality and science. I have always been blessed with an insatiable curiosity and wonder about life, and being in hospital allowed me to pursue my learning as I had on those rainy Saturday afternoons in the Angus & Robertson bookshop. I consumed encyclopaedias and other volumes about many subjects and gave little time to novels: life in its myriad forms was so rich and extraordinary, and exploring its reality as a full-time occupation suited me better than attending school.
A library of sorts was wheeled around by volunteers on a twice-weekly route: a trolley that bore a wondrous load of unexplored tomes. I listened keenly for its squeaking wheels, impatient to devour the subjects that really interested me. Among the books were some with brightly coloured covers from the Hare Krishnas. I’d already read the Bible from cover to cover a couple of times, and now I moved on to the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, the Autobiography of a Yogi, as well as the writings of Alan Watts, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Aldous Huxley and Thomas Merton.
***
My mother’s daily visits were among the highlights of my time in Dalcross. She would bring messages about the family, our animals and their doings. I recognised her footsteps long before I sighted her. I also knew the footsteps of most of the staff and regular visitors, and my heart would shrink or enliven with the recognition of who was approaching.
Being in hospital also meant I got to see a little more of Granny, who came from Brisbane whenever she could. She and I played Scrabble for hours and, in between her visits, I studied the dictionary diligently so I could catch her out on new or unusual words. Indeed, I can thank Scrabble for most of my vocabulary and a good deal of my education, though I’d always had a passion for words and as a child had collected them in little notebooks.
Because my family were so busy with the publishing business, I only occasionally saw Geoff or Ross and Brenden on weekends. My brothers were preoccupied with their schooling, though Brenden’s anxiety was now leading him into more serious depression. Between setting up a business, getting help for Brenden and their worries about me in hospital, it was a wonder that my parents, particularly my mother, managed at all.
While Ross was studying to enter university, Brenden couldn’t always face going to school. My heart ached for him and his words about ending his life haunted me. I was enduring my own emotional turmoil, but I covered it up because Brenden seemed to have ‘baggsed’ depression—I saw no point in trying to compete with him. I simply couldn’t plummet in the way he had as I didn’t feel entitled to be as ‘down’ as he was. I felt the agony of his despair but assiduously maintained a facade of happiness so that my parents’ worries would be minimised.
Being confined to hospital relieved me of the pressure of living with Brenden. I still loved him intensely but found it increasingly difficult to watch him descend into his inner hell. Physical pain was something I could manage and live with; the emotional pain I saw in Brenden was harder for me to witness. But I could—and would—cope with anything, so I worked hard at maintaining my highly polished facade, behind which lay a somewhat bewildered, overwhelmed and frightened little girl.
My parents tried everything under the sun to help Brenden. Psychiatrists were ineffective, as were newer and more alternative therapies such as orthomolecular nutrition. When Brenden was hospitalised, other patients often unburd
ened themselves to him rather than to the staff; he could often help them to see past their depression but was unable to fathom his own torment. His compassion, humour and insight were legendary. When he was well, his wit and wisdom were a joy to everyone who knew him. Any happiness we felt was largely dictated by the fluctuations in his mental health.
When I was in my mid-teens, my mother and I visited his psychiatrist to hear about Brenden’s diagnosis and prognosis. From across the doctor’s large timber desk, he pronounced, ‘Brenden suffers from a Messianic Complex—he believes he is in the world to do good, to make a difference, to help people.’ I felt a sense of dread because I too had such a disease, though just like Brenden, I didn’t have a clue how I might make a positive contribution to the world.
***
Each surgery resulted in three months in hospital and a month on morphine, and then I had to learn to walk again on a leg that was fundamentally changed in its alignment. Pain, discomfort and loneliness were tiny concessions to make and were preferable to living with Brenden and dealing with growing through my teenage years. I felt alien and different to other young people who weren’t preoccupied with questions about their own existence. I thought I was fundamentally flawed in some essential way that made me different from everyone else—except Brenden—who understood my inner world better than anyone, though he was always more preoccupied with his own troubles than with me and mine, which didn’t rate by comparison.
I also felt terribly guilty because, at some deep level I believed I’d created the abnormal growth spurt and the subsequent problems with my legs. I knew I was causing my parents and Granny added worry and stress but the alternative of growing up with Brenden at home seemed insurmountable by comparison. This only added to my desire to be the perfect patient who could cope with any amount of pain, distress and discomfort and never let it show.
