My Place (15 page)

Nothing would dampen Mum's enthusiasm. It didn't matter what horrible and degrading act Curly performed; in Mum's eyes, he was still a gem of a dog. She maintained that his many eccentricities were related to his long pedigree, just as in the human population, those who are especially talented may sometimes have an unusual side to their natures.

One of his most embarrassing habits was to greet newcomers to our home with a unique ritual of his own. He simply focused his zealous, close-set, black eyes on his intended victim and, in a flash, rammed his wet, black nose into their crotch, sniffing deeply. Mum's initial reaction to this extraordinary behaviour was one of wanton laughter, but then, she'd never been attacked.

She rationalised his actions by pointing out that since Curly had been with us, the number of Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and Avon ladies knocking on our door had decreased.

One evening, Mr Willie came round to visit and to inform us that he would soon be moving to Victoria. He was sorry he was leaving, but would make sure we got a nice Legatee in his place.

We were all rude to Mr Willie that night, and, after he left, Mum told us she was ashamed of our behaviour. She didn't understand that we felt abandoned. He'd called us his second family.

It wasn't long before our new Legatee rang to say he'd be popping around in an hour or so to visit us. Anxious to make a good impression, Mum rapidly tidied up the house. This was done in her usual manner by shoving all the clothes and junk scattered over the floor into the wardrobes and under the beds. Anything she couldn't find a spot for was simply screened from view by closing the door. With five children who never tidied up after themselves, and who were always playing some imaginary game that involved the use of sheets, blankets, blocks of wood and kitchen utensils, it was a handy trick. By the time she finished, it looked quite neat, and one would never suspect the mountain of gear stowed away.

Our new Legatee arrived promptly at six p.m., and knocked loudly on the door. Curly, who had just finished his usual dinner of curried chops and was about to embark on his favourite dessert, warm Weetbix generously topped with sugar, pricked up his furry, flea-bitten ears and darted to the door.

‘Sally, grab him,' Mum yelled as she hurled an old dishcloth in a futile attempt to halt his frenzied exit. By the time I caught up
with Curly, he was leaping up and down at the front door, whining and yelping in eager anticipation. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him down the hall and into Mum's bedroom.

‘For God's sake, make sure you shut him in, Sally!' Mum whispered urgently as she hurried past. I gave Curly's backside a quick shove with my foot and, despite his growls and snapping teeth, managed to pull the door shut just as Mum said to our guest, ‘Hello, please come in. Sorry to keep you waiting, I didn't hear you knock.'

‘That's quite all right, Mrs Milroy,' responded our visitor politely, ‘think nothing of it.' And then, seeing me, he added, ‘Aah, now this must be your daughter. No mistaking the resemblance, eh?'

‘Er, yes …' Mum replied as she cast an anxious glance to her bedroom door, ‘this is my eldest daughter, Sally.'

‘Hello,' I smiled. I could just make myself audible above Curly's fervent whining, scratching and yelping.

‘You have a dog, Mrs Milroy? Got one myself, nice little fellow, good company. No need to lock yours up just because I'm here.' Mum smiled politely, then, looking helplessly at me, she said, ‘Oh no, no, he's all right, he likes being in there, doesn't he, Sally?'

‘Er yes …' I muttered, totally amazed at Mum's comment. I eyed our puzzled guest compassionately. I could picture his dog: clean, trimmed and well trained. Not an unkempt, uncouth mongrel like Curly with a brain the size of a dehydrated pea.

‘Come and meet the rest of the family,' Mum said as she grasped his arm and quickly changed the subject.

‘Yes, yes, of course. That's what I'm here for.'

I led the way into our lounge room, where my brothers and sisters were waiting quietly. I halted abruptly when Mum shrieked, ‘Oh my God!'

Somehow, Curly had freed himself, and, with unparalleled speed, he zapped out of the bedroom, down the hall and up between our guest's half-open legs. Our visitor, who was only a
short man, leapt to his tiptoes and clutched the wall behind him. Mum, her fingers desperately digging into Curly's matted fur, yelled, ‘Down Curly, down!' All to no avail. He was abnormally strong for a small dog.

‘Hey, hey, hey,' our victim spluttered as he leapt repeatedly in the air in response to Curly's probing nose.

‘You disgusting dog, you're just disgusting!' Mum scolded as, with one final heave, she tore him away and tucked him firmly under her arm.

‘I don't know what's got into him,' she said unconvincingly. ‘He's normally such a good dog, he's never done anything like this before. I'm so terribly sorry.' Still apologising, Mum lugged Curly out through the kitchen and onto the back verandah.

To his credit, our Legatee, having straightened his clothes and regained some of his composure, struggled on.

Following me into our lounge room, he solemnly introduced himself to my brothers and sisters, who had hurriedly reseated themselves. Then, with a shaky sigh of relief, he carefully lowered himself into our battered green lounge.

‘And how are you doing at school, Jill?' he enquired politely, turning slightly in his chair. A flatulent noise followed. Jill managed to stammer, ‘Oh f..fine … good.'

It would have been less embarrassing if our Legatee had been able to control his nervousness and sit still. Each of his movements, however slight, were accompanied by flatulent noises of varying pitch. It was one of the hazards of sitting on our vinyl lounge. We had all complained to Mum about the lounge before, but now, following Curly's attack, the noises seemed peculiarly appropriate. Our guest's plucky attempts at conversation met with little response. We were all desperately trying to control the laughter that threatened to bubble forth whenever we opened our mouths.

When Mum finally returned, she could see things weren't going too well and it took only a few minutes for her to realise why. Four brief sentences and she excused herself on the pretext of
making a cup of tea. If she'd stayed any longer, she'd have broken her own code of etiquette and burst into a fit of giggles.

Fifteen minutes later, she calmly returned with a tray laden with hot cups of tea and a plate of mixed biscuits. Placing the tray on the wrought-iron table she'd bought at the school fete, she said warmly, ‘Would you like a biscuit with your cup of tea?'

Thankful for the diversion, our guest responded eagerly with, ‘Aah yes, Mrs Milroy, thank you,' and, rising very, very slowly from his chair, he bent down to retrieve a ginger nut.

Suddenly there was chaos. Curly had slipped unseen through the doorway and struck again. Ginger nuts, Milk Desserts and Chocolate Slice biscuits scattered themselves all over the floor. The hot tea from the upturned cups and saucers splashed downwards, slowly melting the Chocolate Slice biscuits and staining Mum's floor rug. Mum leapt over the table shouting, ‘Aaarrgh Curly, you bloody stupid dog! STOP IT!'

Our Legatee was virtually helpless, he was pinned between the table and his seat by Curly sniffing as though his life depended on it. The very act of straightening up caused buttocks to come together, giving Curly's persistent black nose added advantage. The thought of sitting quickly down was too horrible to contemplate.

By the time Curly was finally removed, his little furry chest was heaving spasmodically, as it did during one of his asthma attacks. Mum tucked him under one arm and admonished, ‘You're an animal, Curly, just an animal.' She had a habit of stating the obvious.

Much to Curly's disappointment, the gentleman never returned. A few weeks later, we were informed that we had been appointed another Legatee. Whether he heard about Curly from his predecessor I don't know, but he rarely visited, preferring instead to communicate by telephone or letter.

On the fourteenth of February 1966, Australia's currency changed from pounds, shilling and pence, to dollars and cents. According to Mum and Nan, it was a step backwards in our history. ‘There's no money like the old money,' Nan maintained, and Mum agreed. They had both been shocked when they heard that our new money would not have as much silver in it as the old two shilling, one shilling, sixpence and threepence. They influenced my views to such an extent that, when we were given a free choice for our creative writing essay at school, I wrote a long paper on how the country was going to rack and ruin because we were changing our money.

‘It'll go bad, Glad,' said Nan one night, ‘you wait and see. You can't make money like that, it'll turn green.'

Then I noticed that Nan had a jar on the shelf in the kitchen with a handful of two shilling pieces in it. Towards the end of the week, the jar was overflowing with sixpences, threepences, one shilling and two shilling pieces. I could contain my curiosity no longer.

‘What are you saving up for, Nan?'

‘Nothin'! Don't you touch any of that money!'

I cornered Mum in the bath. ‘Okay Mum, why is Nan hoarding all that money? You're supposed to hand it over to the bank and get new money.'

‘Don't you say anything to anyone about that money, Sally.'

‘Why not?'

‘Look, that money's going to be valuable one day, we're saving it for you kids. When it's worth a lot, we'll sell it and you kids can have what we make. You might need it by then.'

I went back in the kitchen and said to Nan, ‘Mum told me what you're up to. I think it's crazy.'

‘Hmph! We don't care what you think, you'll be glad of it in a few years' time. Now you listen, if anyone from the government comes round asking for money, you tell them we gave all ours to the bank. If they pester you about the old money, you just say you don't know nothin'. You tell 'em we haven't got money like that in this house.'

‘Nan,' I half laughed, ‘no one from the government is gunna come round and do that!'

‘Ooh, don't you believe it. You don't know what the government's like, you're too young. You'll find out one day what they can do to people. You never trust anybody who works for the government, you dunno what they say about you behind your back. You mark my words, Sally.'

I was often puzzled by the way Mum and Nan approached anyone in authority, it was if they were frightened. I knew that couldn't be the reason, why on earth would anyone be frightened of the government?

Apart from Art and English, I failed nearly everything else in the second term of my third year in high school. And Mum was disgusted with my seven per cent for Geometry and Trigonometry.

‘You've got your Junior, soon. How on earth do you expect to pass that?'

‘I don't care whether I pass or not. Why don't you let me leave school?'

‘You'll leave school over my dead body!'

‘What's the point in all this education if I'm going to spend the rest of my life drawing and painting?'

‘You are not going to spend the rest of your life doing that, there's no future in it. Artists only make money after they're dead and gone.'

‘Suits me.'

I gave up arguing and retreated to my room. Mum never took my ambition to be an artist seriously. Not that she didn't encourage me to draw. Once when I was bored, she had let me paint pictures all over the asbestos sheets that covered in our back verandah. Nan had thought it was real good: ‘Better than getting the housing to do it.'

I sighed. Nan believed in my drawings.

The following weekend, my Aunty Judy came to lunch. She was a friend of Mum's. Her family, the Drake-Brockmans, and ours had known each other for years. ‘Sally, I want to have a talk with you about your future,' she said quietly, after we'd finished dessert.

I glared at Mum.

‘You know you can't be an artist. They don't get anywhere in this world. You shouldn't worry your mother like that. She wants you to stay at school and finish your Leaving. You can give up all idea of Art School because it's just not on!'

I was absolutely furious. Not because of anything Aunty Judy had said, but because Mum had the nerve to get someone from outside the family to speak to me. Mum walked around looking guilty for the rest of the afternoon.

It wasn't only Mum and Aunty Judy, it was my Art teacher at school as well. He held up one of my drawings in front of the class one day and pointed out everything wrong with it. There was no perspective, I was the only one with no horizon line. My people were flat and floating. You had to turn it on the side to see what half the picture was about. On and on he went. By the end of ten minutes, the whole class was laughing and I felt very small. I always believed that drawing was my only talent, now I knew I was no good at that, either.

The thought of that horrible day made me want to cry. I was
glad I was in my room and on my own, because I suddenly felt tears rushing to my eyes and spilling down my cheeks. I decided then to give up drawing. I was sick of banging my head against a brick wall. I got together my collection of drawings and painting, sneaked down to the back of the yard, and burnt them.

When Mum and Nan found out what I'd done, they were horrified. ‘All those beautiful pictures,' Nan moaned, ‘gone for ever.' Mum just glared at me. I knew she felt she couldn't say too much, after all, she was partly responsible for driving me to it.

It took about a month for Mum and I to make up. She insisted that if I did my Junior, she wouldn't necessarily make me go on to my Leaving. I, like a fool, believed her.

Towards the end of the school year, I arrived home early one day to find Nan sitting at the kitchen table, crying. I froze in the doorway, I'd never seen her cry before.