My Place (45 page)

I peered up at him, he was a tall, plumpish man, with small round specs perched on the end of his nose.

‘I feel sick,' I said, which was the truth.

‘You poor child,' he murmured, ‘you shouldn't be sitting out here, come into the office at once.' I followed him down the hall and into his office.

‘Now, girlie,' he said, ‘have you eaten lunch? I know what you young people are like, you get talking and playing and you forget to eat your lunch.'

I thought of all the fabulous biscuits and cakes that the teachers had for morning tea, so I couldn't help replying, ‘I haven't eaten anything.'

‘I thought so,' he said. ‘No wonder you feel sick, sit down here.' He sat me down at his desk and then deposited a large glass of milk in front of me, a plate of iced cakes and a huge tin of cream biscuits. ‘Eat!' he commanded. I didn't need to be told twice. I bogged in straightaway.

‘I have to go,' he said, ‘but when you've finished, you lie down on that old cane lounge, and when the bell goes, you can go home.'

About an hour later, the bell woke me and I got up and left. As I was walking down the hall, Miss Edwards saw me and called, ‘Gladys, where did you get to?'

‘Mr Simms took me into his office,' I told her.

‘Serves you right, Gladys,' she said. ‘I don't mind you being late, but you must never go to sleep when I'm reading Jane Austen.'

Our chemistry class was always interesting. There weren't many girls doing chemistry, but I liked it.

Doreen had warned me about this class. ‘Watch out in Chem,' she'd whispered one day as we walked through the door. I didn't realise what she meant until, one day, I stood next to the teacher. He couldn't keep his hands to himself. He loved doing experiments which required him to turn the lights off, and he always chose one of the girls to help him. While you were holding the Bunsen burner, he'd be holding everything else.

He tried it on with Noreen once and she kicked him in the shins. When he found out Noreen and I were friends, he left me
alone. I suppose he thought I might follow her example and kick him too. He preferred girls who were a little more passive.

It was during that year in high school that Mum left Ivanhoe again. I was really angry about that. She'd given up a good job to go back to Alice and now they'd turned around and said that they didn't need her any more and she'd have to find somewhere else to live.

Mum was very hurt, she had pay owing to her which I don't think she ever got. They'd treated me like one of the family in the past, but I was glad now that I didn't belong to them.

One of Mum's friends told her about a job that was going for a cook in the Colourpatch restaurant, it was a little place just opposite the Ocean Beach Hotel, which was an R and R place for American sailors.

Most of the help in the restaurant was voluntary, because they tried to raise money for the armed forces, but the cook's job was a paying one. Mum applied for the job and got it. It was well known around the area what a good cook she was.

Molly Skinner, the author, owned a house just behind the hotel and she said Mum could pay rent and live with her if she wanted to.

Molly was very sympathetic to Aboriginal people and treated them kindly. Mum moved in with her. Molly also said that I could come and stay on weekends. I was very pleased about that, because I had hardly seen Mum for the past few months.

I think Mum would have liked me to live with her full time, but she lacked the confidence to move me away from the Hewitts. She was frightened that something might go wrong and I'd be taken away. She knew Aboriginal people like her weren't allowed to have families. It was because of that that she tried to keep a low profile.

I loved spending weekends with her, she'd spoil me, and Molly Skinner was always pleased to see me.

Every Saturday afternoon, Mum would give me threepence to
go to the pictures with Noreen and Doreen. We had great fun. All the kids from school would be there and we'd yell and scream.

The Colourpatch was really busy on Sundays, so Mum often got me to help out with the waitressing.

The Americans were lovely, they'd leave large tips for me under their plates. All the other waitresses had to hand their tips in, but I was told I was allowed to keep mine. I think it was because Mum was such a good cook. She always gave everyone double helpings and nothing was too much for her. I think she felt sorry for a lot of the servicemen there because some of them were only boys. It was a really happy time for me.

One Sunday night I arrived back at the Hewitts to be met with serious faces from the whole family. Mrs Hewitt took Mum into the lounge and I had to sit out in the hall.

‘You're in big trouble,' Warren whispered. I didn't know what I'd done wrong. Then the youngest Hewitt boy came out and said, ‘Gladys, you've sinned!'

A few minutes later, Mrs Hewitt came out and said, ‘Will you please come in, Gladys?'

I looked at Mum, she was sitting in a chair beside the open fireplace, she looked completely dumbfounded.

‘Now, Gladys,' said Mrs Hewitt, ‘I am going to ask you a question and I want you to answer truthfully. Did you go to the pictures, did you enter that house of sin on Saturday afternoon?' I couldn't think of what to say. ‘It's no use trying to deny it,' she said. ‘One of the ladies from the church saw you.'

That was when I hung my head in shame. I didn't feel sinful. I'd had a great time, but I felt it was expected of me. Mrs Hewitt turned to Mum and said, ‘I don't think it will be suitable for Gladys to stay here any longer. I'm trying to turn her into a good Christian and you're letting her sin on Saturday afternoons!'

Mum just looked at me. She'd never heard of pictures being sinful before.

Mrs Hewitt pointed to the corner of the room and said,
‘Gladys, I've taken the liberty of packing your suitcases, I think you'd better go now.'

Mum and I went back to Cottesloe. We didn't know what to say to each other, neither one of us could think of a thing. For the first time in our lives, we were together. I don't think Mum knew how to handle it. She was too scared to realise that it had actually happened. She was my mother and I was her daughter and we could be a family now. I think she was afraid to get used to it in case I got taken off her again. She knew Aboriginal people who'd never seen their children again.

Miss Skinner was very happy to have me there.

***

I finished school at the end of 1943, I was sixteen. All my friends were going on to business college, but I knew that wasn't possible for me.

I spent my time helping Mum in the restaurant. I was put in charge of making up milkshakes in the lolly shop attached to the Colourpatch. I took great pride in my work and people would come from miles to buy a milkshake off me. I experimented with the contents all the time and would put in great dollops of ice-cream. Sometimes, I put in so much the mixer wouldn't turn. They took me off the milkshakes eventually, I don't think they paid.

After a while, Alice got me a job on trial with a florist in Claremont at six shillings a week. It was a funny set-up in those days. If you were monied people or if you had a name, like Drake-Brockman, it was like ‘Open Sesame'. People ran after you, they rushed to serve you. I think it was a hang-up from Victorian England, though there are a lot of people who still do it today.

I was very excited about my job, I used to ride from Cottesloe to Claremont on an old bike.

The other junior who worked there was great. She was as fair as I was dark. She warned me about my new boss. ‘She's a bit of an
old cow,' she said. ‘She'll leave money on the floor just to see if you'll pinch it, so watch out.'

Sure enough, I was told to sweep the shop and there, on the black oiled floor, was a two shilling piece. I gave it to the boss, she feigned surprise and put it in the till. A week later, there was another two shilling piece on the floor. I handed that in too. That was when I was told that, from then on, I was on staff and would get ten shillings a week.

Mrs Sales, my boss, was a real martinet. Her husband was a bootmaker and worked at the back of the shop.

He reminded Kathy and me of a little frightened mouse. Sometimes he'd sneak out and have a cigarette in the old wooden toilet down the back. Mrs Sales disapproved of him smoking, so he always made sure she didn't see him go.

One day she came storming into the shop with an old cigarette butt she'd found. She accused Kathy and I of smoking on her time. She searched our bags for cigarettes. I never smoked, but Kathy did, she always hid hers behind the back door. I suppose it never occurred to our boss that her husband was the culprit, because she'd banned him from smoking. He never questioned her authority about anything else.

Mrs Sales had another florist shop on the corner of Broadway. I used to catch the trolleybus down and take flowers for them to sell. The junior there was called Violet, she was a nice girl and we became friends.

Kathy, Violet and I were all about the same age. We got plenty of attention from the Americans, because they were always going into florist shops to order corsages for their girlfriends. They were very different to Australian men, much more polite.

About a year later, Kathy became engaged to an American sailor, so we'd often go out to the pictures with his friends. I had a great time until they got serious, Americans always wanted to get engaged. For the first time in my life, I felt free. I didn't have to answer for everything I did. Of course, Mum tried to be very strict with me. She was so suspicious. It was all very innocent, but
she kept saying I didn't know what the world was like or what men were like. I realise now that she was right. I had had a very protected life. I stopped telling her when I was going out and who I was going out with, it only made her worry.

It wasn't long before I'd become very good friends with one of the customers from the shop. She was an English lady called Lois, her husband had been imprisoned by the Japanese. She was a wonderful person, kind and sincere, but she also liked her beer and always had an American in tow.

It was through Lois that I met a nice Scottish sailor. I went out with him for quite a while, it was a good friendship. For once, Mum approved. She knew how wild the Yanks were, so I suppose she thought I'd be safe with a Scotsman.

Every weekend the Yanks had a wild brawl down on the seafront and the police were called in. It was almost a regular outing for them. It was difficult during the war, some of the men had been through terrible things, I think they needed to let off steam some way.

I remember one Sunday, waiting at a bus stop for a bus to my girlfriend's house, when a lady came along. She was catching the same bus as me, so we started to chat.

‘You're very beautiful, dear,' she said, ‘what nationality are you, Indian?'

‘No,' I smiled, ‘I'm Aboriginal.'

She looked at me in shock. ‘You can't be,' she said.

‘I am.'

‘Oh, you poor thing,' she said, putting her arm around me, ‘what on earth are you going to do?'

I didn't know what to say. She looked at me with such pity, I felt really embarrassed. I wondered what was wrong with being Aboriginal. I wondered what she expected me to do about it.

I talked to Mum about it and she told me I must never tell anyone what I was. She made me really frightened. I think that was when I started wishing I was something different.

It was harder for Mum than me because she was so broad featured she couldn't pass for anything else. I started noticing that, when she went out, people stared at her, I hadn't realised that before.

The conversation with that lady at the bus stop really confused me. I suddenly felt like a criminal. I couldn't understand why I felt so terrible. Looking back now, I suppose she knew more about how Aboriginal people were treated than I did. She probably knew I had no future, that I'd never be accepted, never be allowed to achieve anything.

I tried for a while after that to talk to Mum and get her to explain things to me, especially about the past and where she'd come from. It was hopeless, we'd been apart too long to get really close. I knew she loved me and I loved her, but, for all my childhood, she had been just a person I saw on holidays. I couldn't confide my worries to her. She just kept saying, ‘Terrible things will happen to you if you tell people what you are.' I felt, for her sake as well as my own, I'd better keep quiet. I was really scared of authority. I wasn't sure what could happen to me.

Molly Skinner sold her house, so we had to find somewhere else to live. We managed to rent another place near the Ocean Beach Hotel. It was a nice little weatherboard house.

Mum and I began to disagree a lot more. I had bought myself a few things from my wages and she would give them away to her friends without even asking me. If they said they liked something, she'd say, ‘Oh, Glad doesn't want that, she can buy another one, you take it.' People would come and deliberately point out something of mine and she would give it to them straightaway, especially if they were white people. I used to think she was trying to impress them. She was trying to buy white friends. It used to really upset me. There were so many things that I didn't understand, then.

Another lady came to help cook at the Colourpatch and I became very good friends with one of her daughters. We went
many places together and I often stayed overnight at her house. She had brothers and sisters, I really envied that.

One of her sisters became engaged and I was invited to the engagement party, that was where I met Bill.

It was strange, really, because, all my teenage years, I'd dreamt of this man who I would one day meet and marry, so it was quite a shock to see him at this party. The dreams I'd had about him were always mixed up and recurring. Sometimes, they'd turn into nightmares. My future marriage was to turn out like that, it was to be good and bad, only I didn't know it then.