Girl on the Edge

by Kim Hodges

  Thinking back on the rigidity of these shopping trips, which varied little throughout my teenage years, what strikes me most is my mother’s sheer insistence on determining my wardrobe. During my teenage years I felt awkward, daggy, too tall, too skinny, too tomboyish, too everything. Her insistence on daggy dresses and high heels compounded my inadequate feelings. At eighteen years of age, the moment I moved out of home, I bought and wore what I wanted: flat comfortable shoes, modern dresses and jeans.

  chapter twelve

  KEEPING A FAMILY SECRET

  One afternoon, relieved to get home from school, I put on my play clothes, gobbled up afternoon tea, and went back outside to rumble with our family dog, BJ. I lay on the grass in the backyard with BJ standing over me. Dribbles of white saliva slipped out from the sides of his mouth, as my forceful patting action became firmer and firmer. I could feel his excitability. Eventually, when the dribbles landed on my face, it was time to jump up and wrestle him onto his back. I tickled and tickled him. I had BJ in the palm of my hand. His smile revealed teeth, lips, gums, and tongue, calling me to inspect further down his throat, his tonsils and oesophagus. As his anatomy became unidentifiable, I gave up on my scientific investigation—the saliva frothed and flowed from his gaping mouth, obscuring my vision. My face, like BJs, was beaming. “Come on boy,” I teased. I scratched his tummy until he couldn’t stand it any longer. Then he would jump up shaking free of my hold, his dribble spraying me in droplets. “That’s my boy,” I said. I loved BJ and so did my three brothers. It was not long after this that BJ had to be taken away.

  BJ was the cutest and friendliest dog in town. He was a light golden brown, thanks to the Labrador in him, with a smallish stature, due to the cocker spaniel in him. He had the best of the physical attributes of the two breeds: big floppy ears, enticing eyes, a smile in which his tongue was always hanging out of one side of his mouth, and a tail that constantly wagged. He often strutted along Oban Street, past the fire station pool, the Presbyterian Church, into the main street, and up to Coolah Central School to greet us. “G’day BJ!”—he got plentiful pats and coat-rufflings from passers-by.

  BJ followed one of us, or a neighbourhood kid, to school often, but no dogs were allowed. A pupil would be sent to the school office to inform my mother that BJ had yet again arrived. My mother would have to ask the pupil to go and find him and bring him to the school car park. Enticing BJ away from a circle of kids patiently waiting for a pat was a challenging task. Usually one of our family would have to do it. We were able to more forcefully pull him by the collar, or pick him up and carry him to the waiting car. My mother would drive BJ home to secure him on his chain. It was attached to a long wire, giving BJ twenty metres of freedom, access to drinking water, a bone, and shelter. Most times, BJ waited patiently, all day, for one of us kids to come home from school and let him off the chain. It was the first job that someone would do before we even went in for afternoon tea. BJ relied heavily on his cuteness and friendly nature, because he was also very dumb. With little reservation, he approached every other dog or human being with his smiling face and tongue nicely angled, partially hanging outside his mouth. BJ was unaware of any danger. If a stranger called out his name, he went and wagged his tail demanding a pat in return for his cuteness. He always got one. If another dog was being territorial and growled at BJ, his face displayed surprise, as he turned, to place his tail between his legs and retreat a safe distance.

  The Coolah gossip had it that Max, the German shepherd, was running around town after dark with a pack of fierce dogs. Max lived right next door. If I even so much as looked at Max he would growl at me. I felt fortunate to have a high fence between us. His dark coat, big torso and dark, deep-set eyes sent a shiver down my spine. If Max had ever managed to get through the fence into our yard, I felt sure that carnage would ensue. He could rip into anyone of us kids, gouge us like a fresh bone, and then shake his head as if we were one of the rag-dolls he carried in his jaws. He kept a watchful eye on his family: Bronwyn, Ralph and their two kids. I never saw him being playful or seeking comfort from a non-family member. He would become submissive when one of his family members approached him for a pat. As my eyes connected with the devious Max, a shudder of fear again consumed my body. He knew that I knew he was acting, merely fulfilling his role as a nice family pet. My brothers and I dared one another to jump the fence and collect a lost ball, offering rewards from our pocket money. With little spare money in our family, that was appealing, but even for substantial amounts, neither my brothers, nor I, were even tempted. Our ball games always ended at this point. Max would watch the ball in the air and once it had bounced on the ground, he would turn and glare intensely at us. He was like a crocodile or a rogue shark waiting to consume any smaller fish in its pathway, or to take a chunk out of a surfer’s body.

  The first and only time that a policeman had knocked on our door, late one afternoon, was when we first heard that BJ was running with a pack of dogs. The officer shook my father’s hand and was invited in.

  “BJ was seen running with a pack of dogs last night,” the officer said after sitting down. “A local farmer heard a kafuffle in the direction of his sheep paddock, so he went to the paddock to survey the situation with a torch and a shotgun. Two sheep were dead—the jugular vein in their necks chewed,” the policeman informed us.

  “Terrible,” said one of us kids.

  “BJ stayed behind, wagging his tail and jumped up onto the farmer. The other dogs ran off into the night and could not be identified,” he said. We were all stunned. There was no doubt BJ had definitely been spotted. “So BJ stayed behind and was friendly to the farmer,” my mother said.

  “The farmer spared BJ’s life. He had every right to shoot him,” the policeman told us, implying luck was on our side. “As you know, once a dog has a taste for fresh blood then they’ll always be a killer, searching for it, sheep or chickens, anything to satisfy the craving. It never leaves them,” said the policeman. Dad nodded in agreement. It was news to me.

  “BJ would never kill anything,” my mother stated. We agreed with her. Her politeness took me by surprise. I listened intently, noticing my mother exhibiting self-control with her tongue.

  “BJ was here with us,” one of the kids said defensively.

  “Did you actually see him between 11 P.M. and 5 A.M. this morning? Doesn’t he sleep outside the house?” probed the policeman.

  I sensed my parents were not about to lie to a policeman. “Yes, he lives outside of the house,” replied my father. “As I said before, you’re very lucky as the farmer was well within his rights to shoot BJ, but he didn’t,” the policeman repeated. We all agreed.

  “The farmer wants your dog dead or gone,” the policeman said.

  Every member of my family was shocked, stunned and speechless, as these words sunk in. My parents’ concern and fondness for BJ was evident on their faces. Tenderness, softness and vulnerability on my parents’ faces took me by surprise. Emotion was so rarely displayed. My dad calmly and gently disputed the policeman’s claims with well-formulated arguments. But the policeman held firm.

  “There are only two options. Option one is that BJ has to be put down by me. Option two, you could get the dog out of town and relocate him, by Sunday night, in two days’ time,” the policeman said. My parent’s faces paled in response.

  “We have to save BJ,” said one of my brothers, and then we all joined in.

  “I’ll relocate BJ to my mother-in-law’s, a seven-hour drive away to the coast and I guarantee you that BJ will never find his way back to Coolah,” my father assured the policeman.

  “Was Max, the German shepherd next door with the pack of dogs?” I found the courage to ask the policeman hoping Max would be caught too.

  “He hasn’t been sighted yet, but I suspect he’s one of the ring leaders,” he replied. So scheming Max had evaded the law and the farmer. I imagined Max licking the sheep’s blood off his lips as we spoke.

  “OK. You ha
ve until Sunday night,” the policeman nodded his head. The men shook hands and said their goodbyes.

  Afterwards I thought about my mother’s calmness towards the policeman. The respect for authority had felt familiar. Then it clicked. Her behaviour reminded me of our visits to Dr Desmond. Professional people were placed on pedestals by many of the people in this small community. She had also let our father respond to the policeman’s claims. I supposed that she considered the matter a man-to-man thing. Our family talked about it all weekend. In my entire childhood, that was the only time that tears formed in the eyes of all of the family members, even my parents. Still, we all wiped away the tears as they reached our cheeks, lest they attract ridicule.

  Two days later, our parents packed BJ for his departure. His “mansion” was tied onto our trailer. BJ sat in the passenger’s side of the car, on a rug. His face turned, smiling, towards the driver’s seat, waiting for my father. The kids all lined up to hug him and wave goodbye. “I love you BJ,” and “You’ll be back home soon.” My dad set off at 7 A.M. BJ was oblivious to the fact of his being relocated. He smiled at us with every pat and hug, loving all of the attention. He had no sense that anything was amiss.

  After that, my mother telephoned her mother every Sunday night so that she could give her children a weekly update on BJ. He was always doing fine. He did not run away, roam at night, or kill the neighbourhood chickens. We were correct. BJ was not a killer. I wondered if BJ missed us or not? If he had returned to us, would he have remembered us? Do animals, as dumb and loyal as BJ remember or merely stumble happily through one day at a time? It didn’t matter. I still loved him unconditionally.

  *

  Three months later, my parents called a family meeting. The policemen who had taken BJ away had left town for a new posting. The new policeman would have no history of what had happened, so BJ could come back. We decided to wait two weeks and let the policeman settle so the timing did not appear suspicious. We were all sworn to secrecy, not one of us was to tell a friend, or breathe a word to anyone. Our parents told us to say that the new dog was BJ’s brother PK. We made a pact and shook hands. Our excitement was uncontained; we jumped up and down in anticipation of BJ’s reunion with his loving family. We had all committed to telling a family lie. Exactly two weeks after the new policeman arrived, my father went through his earlier actions in reverse. The trailer hooked onto the car, he set off on the seven-hour journey. The next afternoon he arrived back with PK. We were all ecstatic. I again wondered if BJ had a memory of our family, or if this was just another day in his life, full of pats, hugs, food and sleep.

  “It’s true that once dogs have the taste of blood they can’t get rid of it and they want to keep killing, but BJ hasn’t killed in the three months he was away; he’s not a killer,” my mother was trying to assuage my conscience. Had BJ killed any sheep then my conscience might have gotten the better of me. I may not have been able to keep supporting the family lie.

  Initially, over dinner we would exchange stories about BJ, operating under his cover name of PK. We would attempt to outdo one another’s stories. My twin friends had tested me, until they eventually ran out of energy. I never gave in.

  “PK is exactly the same as BJ,” they would chant in support of each other.

  “Because they’re brothers,” I would calmly respond.

  “But this isn’t PK, it’s BJ,” Suzie asserted.

  “No this is PK, standing right here.” They still didn’t believe me.

  “Prove it’s PK,” said Sam, testing me.

  “OK, I’ll walk ahead and call him. You stay there patting him and we’ll see if he comes to me,” I responded, knowing that BJ came at the sound of my voice.

  I walked ahead about ten metres in the street. “PK,” I called out and tapped my knees with my hands. He turned, smiled and ran towards me and leaped into my opened arms.

  “See, this is PK,” I said, as BJ and I walked back to the twins.

  Disappointment and scepticism was on the twin’s faces. I knew that they knew the truth, but they were never going to get it out of me. I had two strategies for making it more believable. Firstly, I answered any and all of their questions until, like the twins, other friends gave up in frustration and sheer boredom with the topic. Secondly, I would demonstrate my dog’s response to the name PK. I justified this behaviour based on the initial injustice for our banished family dog.

  My brothers had also been quizzed, tricked and cross-examined by friends and neighbourhood kids about PK’s identity. Our parents were also queried. We laughed at how ludicrous it was that we had gotten away with our family lie. Not one of us had flinched, cracked or confessed. Keeping our family pact united us. We committed each day to maintaining the identity fraud. The injustice inflicted on BJ in the first instance faded into the background replaced by our tall stories about PK.

  *

  When I was seventeen I found solace in BJ as the sickness that foreshadowed the big ordeal brewed in my body. His smiling face would soothe me for a few moments, when my thoughts became confused and self-doubt scrambled my mind. “What is wrong with me, mate?” I would ask him. “Can you tell me? Because I have no idea.” Being able to say the words out loud, while BJ smiled back at me, comforted me. His unconditional love, accepting eyes, and wagging tail soothed me, but there was nothing BJ could do for me when the big ordeal consumed me. Then, I deliberately moved away from him—I came to view BJ as a just a family pet and then as just a dog. As I became even more unwell, I emotionally removed myself completely from him. Patting and saying g’day to him became a thing of the past. Actually, I removed myself from everyone, as panicked thoughts and irrationality came to cloud my judgement and my body sped up, out of control.

  *

  When I returned home from Sydney, about six months after leaving Coolah when I was eighteen, I discovered that BJ’s smile had disappeared, his tail had stopped wagging, his weight increased and sleep had become his most regular habit. Ill health had clawed its way in. During his rapid decline we all searched for answers and speculated about diabetes. Someone had to be blamed, so we all pointed the finger at our mother. She had soaked up the thick layer of animal fat left in the bottom of the baking pan, after our roast dinners, with white bread crusts and broken them into bite-sized pieces with her fingers. When it had cooled, the pan was placed outside for BJ to enjoy, licking it until every skerrick of animal fat was gone. If BJ died of diabetes then it was her fault. A visit to the vet was out of reach financially. Our parents’ comments reinforced this: “Let nature take its course,” and “What will be, will be.” It was easier to blame a person rather than to just accept that BJ had died young. He died during my first year out of home. My siblings and I were saddened at his premature death and we shared tears over BJ, as my father dug a grave in our backyard. We farewelled our dog and supported each other. A piece of BJ’s soul was left in each of our hearts. His kind nature became our most fixed memory of him. We all spoke of how BJ could never ever be replaced, and he wasn’t—he was our last family dog.

  *

  Even in middle age, I sometimes fondly recalled PK’s return and BJ’s funeral. These events showed that our family did have the capacity to care for and support each other. As the tears had swelled in all of our eyes, emotions visible, all judgements had been put aside at his funeral. My fondest memory of BJ was of the family solidarity that I had experienced for the first and only time and the laughter of all of the tall tales that we had shared about him. I wonder where that solidarity was during my darkest year as the illness grabbed hold of me. Instead, anger, accusations, threats and verbal abuse were hurled towards me and I had reciprocated. Where were the family meetings, shared tears, support and care that I had so desperately needed? Our family had achieved it over a dog, so I knew it was possible. My despair during that horrid year often reduced me to private tears. I had guarded my own privacy knowing that no-one would be able to bear witness to my despair and overwhelming sadness. Have a g
ood cry and get it out, I told myself. In the short-term this worked, but in the longer-term this illness crawled its way back to me. Its tentacles grabbed me, again and again, and would not let go.

  chapter thirteen

  OUTSIDERS COME TO TOWN

  When I was thirteen years old, the building of the new Coolah Hospital was announced. It generated the largest influx of outsiders that I had ever seen. The State Government had allocated funding to the Western Health Service, who immediately started work on Coolah District Hospital, in case the funding was retracted. A twenty-bed brick hospital, with a small emergency section, was to replace the old wooden ten-bed hospital. The new hospital was the envy of many nearby towns. But operations, x-rays, tricky deliveries, and all specialist services, would still require travelling to Dubbo Base Hospital or to Tamworth Hospital.

  A year later, Mr Wran, the Premier of NSW visited Coolah to officially open the new hospital. His duties were unveiling a plaque located on the lawn outside the hospital entrance and cutting a ribbon on the front door. Mr Wran, like all official visitors, was photographed at the Black Stump rest area, seven kilometres from Coolah. Other communities disputed Coolah’s claim to the stump and instead spruiked the originality of their own black stump. But Coolah has held on tight to its claims of owning The Original Black Stump. Coolah locals wrote newspaper articles often, to settle any confusion. The Black Stump is famous in Australian folklore. “Beyond the Black Stump” is a phrase that has come to mean beyond civilisation. Coolah was the last township with supplies on a journey out west, fifty or so years ago, before roads were tarred. Well, so the locals will tell you.

  In the week leading up to the hospital opening, the main street of Coolah buzzed. My mother’s voice rang like a bell, full of excitement, as she spoke down the telephone wire to the other townie women. I heard it and I saw it in her smile. Every resident of Coolah had been invited to a morning tea that was to be provided by the Health Service. Many townies attended, to see the much-liked Labor politician in the flesh, and for the free morning tea. A few graziers attended, to support the new hospital, but not the Labor politician. The official opening was on a school day, to deliberately cheat the kids. Some families allowed their kids to have the day off school but not us. Skipping school was forbidden in our family. The night before the opening, my mother ironed one of her favourite dresses, and a shirt, trousers and tie for my father. I sensed the importance of the opening, so I rushed home from school that afternoon. Who was there? What were they wearing? What was for morning tea? How much did you eat? As my mother talked like an authority on everything, I listened intently. I felt connected and close to her, but only for the length of the conversation.