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Video clip from Shadow of Eden by
Rachael Romero on the Magdalen laundries of
Australia
(c) Rachael Romero
| |
       
      
 
... from The Little Mongrel
Broadview Crescent
Trevallyn
Circa 1955
Excerpts on this page:
Author's
Note
The
intangible link to the mother I had never seen haunted me and it created
obstacles to forming other relationships throughout my childhood. I saw her
everywhere my mind wandered. Her faceless beauty and magnetism called to me and her
abstract presence invaded my psyche, yet it remained elusive. I felt her healing
touch on the wounds of rage inflicted by my adoptive mother; her reassurance
followed each moment of despair and her soothing comfort shone through the
darkness. I looked for her on every street I walked, on every bus and train and
in the eyes of every woman I met. I waited for her from each years beginning to
its end, until I lost myself in the waiting. I believed in her until all belief
had been stripped from me. I loved her until I could love her no more and then
I hated her, and this was to be my strength during the journey of my
adolescence.
Back to the top
Excerpt
from Introduction
I missed
my mother constantly. I needed her to make me whole. To complete me. To take me
to that magical place of my imagination; a place of love and shelter.
This longing was amplified at night when I lay awake in the attic, as I
listened and waited for the demons of the night to appear. The wall joists that
separated the attic rooms had nails hammered in at random. This was our
wardrobe, where clothes that hung by the scruff of their collars, competed for
space against the rough hewn timber. The wall came to life after dark. The
clothes merged with the shadows, and reached out to the illumination from the
street light that shone through the silver birch at the top of the long drive.
A
naked pilot light at the top of the
dark stairway
beckoned eerily, its dull red glow ebbing and waning, as the night breeze fanned
the curtained doorway. The squeals of baby rats filtered through from the open
rafters. The stairs creaked and I held my breath as I waited for the sound of
her voice, and the order to get out of bed. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed
for my real mother to find me. Please God let her be waiting for me tomorrow.
‘Get down here now you little
mongrel.’
Back to the top
Excerpts
from Chapter
Two - The Farm Years
The camp out was arranged
for an evening our parents had visitors from the city. Living so far away from
town, most visits were planned as overnight stays and, once the adults were deep
in discussion, it was unlikely they’d
give another thought to children safely asleep in their beds. Graham nicked four
spud bags from the barn and helped us out our bedroom window once the adults
were settled around the kitchen fire for the evening.
We lay out on the lawn under the star studded sky,
oblivious to the grime of our dirt encrusted sleeping bags and the hard earth
beneath us, while he regaled us with stories of his heroic escapades with the
Boog. With his scout torch shining upwards from under his chin, he turned
his eyelids inside out and gave ghoulish explanations for every night noise. I
hid my face inside my sack, until the musty aroma of soil stole my breath and I
had to come out for air.
Just as I ventured a peep out of the bag, the night sky
was rent by a roaring sound that sent the others into the inner depths of their
bags. Even Graham dived for cover. My heart skipped a beat, and then stopped
completely for a moment, as I froze in sheer terror. The sky was illuminated by
a million sparks, spitting bright red as they flew heavenward in a fiery rage.
Added to this cacophony was the stampede of frantic feet and hysteric babble of
voices I was certain heralded the end of the world. I squeezed my eyes shut, and
shunted my head back into its earthy protection, desperate to block out the
sight of the Japs, Germans, the barnyard Boog or whatever hell had
descended on us.
From my position of terror I failed to see Mum, Dad and
their company tumbling out the back door in their haste to escape the chimney
fire in the kitchen. The first I knew of their presence was when I became caught
up in the melee of feet as they tripped over the four small bodies that lay,
eyes shut tight, against the purgatory that awaited them.
~~~~~~~~~
Marcia and I had learnt to
share most things, but there were occasions when two minds had one aim, and a
collision of wills resulted. Not every toy from the stock pile at Parklands made
its way to the farm and there were fewer toys to share. One that did make the
journey was the tin pedal car, the subject of previous contention between us. Two
children could fit in the car quite comfortably, but there could only be one
driver at a time and we were both determined to steer our own course.
The odd thing about this particular toy was how it
could sit for days on end, driverless and neglected, and yet it only took a
glance in its direction from either of us, and we were off. Marcia had greater
speed and inevitably beat me to the driver’s
seat. She’d throw herself in through the open side, cast a smug look in my
direction and pedal furiously down the barnyard, spitting gravel in all
directions.
I resorted to more vigorous ways to assert myself. I
became sneaky and tried to creep up to the car when she wasn’t
looking, but she’d appear from nowhere, a mother bear protecting her young. I’d
make a bolt for it but, as always, she beat me to it.
I scruffed at her clothes and tried to drag her out.
I pulled and pushed and she screamed and bawled,
holding tight to the steering wheel.
Sometimes I succeeded in getting her out and onto the ground,
but it didn’t
do me any good, because she held fast to the wheel, capsizing the car as she went.
She yelled for Mum and I made myself scarce for fear of the punishment I knew
would come.
As time passed I became more frustrated and my rages
grew more murderous. One day, when I’d once again been left biting Marcia’s dust
as she pedalled
triumphantly down the yard, I burst into a frenzy of rage. I chased her and
attacked her with everything in me, oblivious to her screams and the sight of
Mum running to the rescue. I punched and pulled and kicked, and it was the
latter that caused the biggest ruckus. It seemed that, while punching and
pulling were definitely unacceptable, and decidedly unladylike, kicking was an
absolute crime.
So there we were. Marcia bawling her eyes out, refusing
to relinquish her grip on the steering wheel, and me huffing in frustration at
losing the race once again, maintaining my own firm grip. Mum wrenched me free
while Marcia, relieved her victim role had been recognized, screamed louder.
‘She kicked me! She kicked me!’
She grabbed her shin and hopped about on one foot, car
forgotten in the drama. It was all so unnecessary though, as my fate had already
been decided.
‘Kick, will you? Well I’ll
show you…only horses kick.’
My mother yelled, her fingers tightening in the
now familiar grip around my upper arm as she half lifted me off the ground.
‘So you want to be a horse, do
you?’
Her fury built with each word spat in my direction.
‘Well miss, you can be a horse
and see how you like it.’
She ignored my
protests and blubbered promises I’d never do it again, as she half dragged, half
carried me to the barn, where she relaxed her grip long enough to grab a length
of bailing twine from a nail on the wall. She kept up a relentless mantra as she
propelled me down the barnyard.
‘Kick, will you? You want to be a
horse, do you?’
On and on she ranted, until she stopped at the support
pillar of the clothes line, where she raised my right leg and tied it to the
post.
‘Now miss, let’s
see if you like being a horse. You want to act like a horse, so I’ll
treat you like one. Horses have to be tied up.’
She turned and left me, one leg firmly on the ground
and the other raised and attached to the post by sharp twine that chafed and
prickled with the slightest movement.
I don’t
know how long I stayed tied to the pole. Time didn’t matter. The degradation of
being animalised in this way bit much deeper than the twine. My sense of
worthlessness increased. I never again sought to emulate equine behaviour and
the pedal car lost its attraction for me after that day.
Back to the top
Excerpts from Chapter 3 - Early Days at Broadview
By the end of 1952 the
attic has reached a stage of completion that allowed our transfer from the
ground floor bedrooms to the top of the house. A narrow flight of stairs rose
from the newly formed passage and floorboards had been laid to form two rooms
and a landing. The walls of the stairway remained unlined and globs of hard
plaster poked through the lathes of the companion wall, while splintered wall
joists played host to colonies of spiders and their webs.
There was no natural light coming in and a small pilot
globe had been installed at the top of the stairs, a beacon for us to navigate
our way through the dimness. The top step ended at the doorway of the larger of
the two rooms, while a step to the right led to a small landing. This area
housed a door-less wardrobe that formed a partial barrier to the open rafters
beyond. The remainder of the gap was covered by a limp curtain that rustled and
moved constantly in the breeze from the
louvre window, set in the end gable of
the open raftered area. Any fresh air was lost to the dust and stale plaster it
traversed.
Neither of the bedrooms had a fixed door and curtains
had been hung in the openings as a concession to privacy. These two rooms were
lined on the outer walls and the ceiling, which sloped down to form part of the
wall, while the internal wall dividing the two rooms was lined to dado height.
The exposed wall joists above this had randomly spaced nails we used as clothes
pegs. An overflow of garments lay in disarray on the end of our beds and on the
floor. Old coats mixed with ex-army blankets, and the musty smell of unwashed
clothes and bed linen added to the atmosphere of neglect.
Marcia and I were given single beds, as our old double
bed wouldn’t
fit into the smaller room we’d been allocated, and this was the only benefit we
gained from the move. Gone was the pink lino and the
Bangalore Man’s
marching space, and the night sounds from the wharf were muted at this level.
The boys inherited the double bed, which two of them shared, while Graham had a
single bed.
In the attic my fears multiplied and I became too
scared to fall asleep for fear of what lurked in the dark. Both rooms had a
small window facing the steep driveway at the front of the house and the street
beyond. A tall silver birch tree, directly in front of a street light at the top
of the drive, cast eerie shadows and gave life to the clothing that hung from
the nails. It was a place of whisperings and rustlings, of furtive movement, and
a chill that never left.
~~~~~~~~~
As much as I feared the
attic, I feared the call in the middle of the night, to get up and come
downstairs, even more. We were not allowed to talk after going to bed, but
sometimes Marcia and I would talk softly, sharing the day’s events and other
confidences. We knew we were reasonably safe, as long as we didn’t
speak above a whisper, because our mother never came upstairs. She said it gave
her asthma, and confined herself to standing at the bottom of the stairs, where
she tried to catch us breaking the no-talking rule. If she was really intent on
detection she’d mount the first couple of steps, taking care to place her feet
where the treads didn’t creak. Here she’d stand for a minute or an hour, however
long it took for one of us to give her an excuse to visit her madness upon us.
When we did become aware of her presence, we were never sure just how long she’d
been standing there or what, if anything, she might have overheard.
Her voice would ring out, bouncing off the walls and
ceiling, gleeful we’d fallen into her trap, and a cold band of fear would
constrict my chest.
‘That’s
it, you girls! I’ve
had enough of both of you. Get your gowns and slippers on and come downstairs
now.’
We knew what
this meant. Once downstairs she’d berate us for our wickedness and ingratitude,
emphasizing her words with clips around the ear; her rage escalating with each
word.
‘You can get out to the garage
now and see how you like it there with the rats.’
Then she’d
shepherd us toward the back door with smacks to the back of our heads and push
us out into the dark.
‘Don’t
even think about putting the light on…you
can sit in the dark and think about what you’ve
done! And don’t
come in until I tell you to…you little mongrels.’
Sometimes we’d try to
work out what it was we were supposed to have done; what it was that we had to
think about, but most times it was a mystery to us both. I’d sit close to Marcia
on the oily garage floor, our backs hard against the wall, as we listened to the
rats that scurried about overhead and cried our silent tears.
It wasn’t
only talking in bed that sent our mother into a rage. Her anger simmered close
to the surface, ready to erupt for no reason I could see. She’d dredge up
accusations against us, real or imagined, to justify her night mania. It could
be anything at all and the list of our offences was endless; we hadn’t
done the dishes properly, or wiped the sink down the way she liked it; something
we’d
done the week or even the month before; something she’d
been told or overheard, or even what she imagined we might do, there was always
something. If we summonsed the courage to ask for specifics, she would simply
say.
‘Don’t you question me you young pup. I don’t have to
tell you anything.’ And she’d reinforce our position with a few clouts about the
head.
Some nights, when she called us to come down, we were
sent beyond the garage to the bottom of the yard, to sit in the open storeroom
attached to the chook house. It was a place I avoided during the day, alive with
spiders and other insects that thrived in the dry atmosphere, and rats that
chewed their way through the bags of grain. It was even worse at night. There
was no light to break the darkness, or street lamp to assist us in finding our
way down the long path and across the vegetable patch. We’d grab at each other,
clawing in the dark, lest one of us be spirited away and the other left alone.
We tripped and stumbled, until the dry earthen floor of the storeroom caused us
to catch our breath, and we felt our way through the blackness for a place to
sit. The night noises were amplified by the soughing of the tall trees and wind
whistled through the loose planks of the shelter and the chest-tightening panic
was all consuming. It left no room for tears or any thought except survival.
Although I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, I
accepted this treatment as something I deserved, simply because of who I was;
because I didn’t have a real mother. We’d sit in our misery, arms covering our
heads, our only defence against whatever malevolence the darkness carried, as we
waited for our mother to summons us back to the house.
On these nights, I welcomed my return to
the familiar terrors of the attic.
Back
to the top
Excerpt from Vacations and
Vacancies
Additional to the
downstairs flat tenants, and the middle floor boarders, there were other regular
additions and removals from the household. While Lynny was the last baby legally
adopted into the family, a number of other children came to stay from time to
time; for weekends and school holidays and some for longer periods. These small
guests usually came from the Girl’s Home in Wellington Street, or from Glenara,
the good boy’s
home at Youngtown.
It was an odd situation where my mother, unable to bond
with most of her adopted children, and who showed active dislike of her
daughters, would bring more children into an already overcrowded and
dysfunctional family. There appeared to be no authoritative supervision of the
holiday guest placements because, if anyone had ever viewed the sleeping
arrangements in the attic, they could not, in all conscience, have left any of
us in that situation. They certainly wouldn’t have placed more children with the
family.
Yet these placements were arranged through the State
Social Services Department. Maybe they saw our home as a quick fix for the
hard-to-place kids, choosing not to look too closely into the psychological
make-up of the family, nor the deprivations that existed within it.
One thing I learnt from these young visitors was the
absolute reality of ‘homes’,
where children just like me lived. I understood positions in life were
interchangeable, families could be temporary, and children had no say in where
they lived. I knew when I was threatened with banishment to a girl’s
home there was a very real possibility it could happen.
Excerpts from Chapter Seven - Regent House
Mary didn’t
look anything like the ‘home’ girls of my imagination. She had a cheery face
that matched her plumpness and, if anything, she looked a bit old fashioned in
her matronly skirt and jumper. She was very talkative and, within the first five
minutes of our meeting, told me she was sixteen years old and having a day off
work because she felt sick. Her boyfriend, Bob, worked for the railways and she
was in Regent House because her father had sex with her. While my head was still
spinning from this disclosure, she surprised me with the frankness of her next
question.
‘Do you fuck?’
‘No!’
She was as startled by my response as I’d been by her
question. I was also embarrassed by her easy use of the word. It wasn’t as if
I’d never heard it before, but it had always been as an adjective or a sentence
filler. I’d never been asked such a question before.
‘Really? But have you ever done it?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
I wished she’d change the subject, but she appeared to
be fascinated by my chastity.
‘Are you a virgin…a fucken virgin?’
‘Yes!’
‘I can’t believe it. A fucken virgin in Regent House.
You won’t stay that way for long.’
She then returned to chatting about herself and the
other girls who lived in the hostel, giving me explicit details of every aspect
of their lives. I wondered what kind of place I was in. I’d tried not to think
about it in the days since my mother had declared her intentions to send me
away, and on the few occasions when fear had pushed through my denial, I’d never
once thought about the sexual behaviour of other girls. I’d thought they might
be rough and tough, and given to physical expressions of likes and dislikes, but
that had been the extent of it. I was already feeling out of place.
~~~~~~~~~
I felt even
more disconnected during this weekend at home. I’d been thrust back into a now
alien environment of judgement and pretence and there was no place for me here.
The family had spread out in my absence. I no longer had a bed, or even a bed
space of my own. Marcia said she didn’t want to share a room with someone from a
girl’s home, although we’d been doing just that for years with other girls, so I
was made to sleep on a camp stretcher just inside the doorway of the boy’s
bedroom. I hid my hurt behind a tough, defiant attitude and added it to my list
of things to tell Miss Allen about on my return to the hostel.
I’d changed outwardly too. I now modelled my manner of
dress, make-up and hair style, on my older peers from Regent House, adopting the
tart chic of the prostitutes as my own fashion statement. My mother approved of
my little pink suit, provided I didn’t hitch it up or clinch it in at the waist
with a wide belt, but my hair was another matter altogether. It was long and
bouncy on the ends, with the same long fringe I’d worn since I’d left school.
She hated it. She’d rarely let me grow my hair below ear length, anything longer
was an anathema to her. She insisted that, if I wouldn’t cut it, I’d have to
wear it up in a French roll. I protested against this, but I was back under her
control, so I acquiesced and allowed my sister-in-law, Pauline, to do it up for
me.
I was fourteen years old and looked about twelve, and
there I was with this sophisticated hair style to add to my feelings of
discomposure. My fringe was parted in the middle and dragged away from my eyes,
which had been cleared of black eyeliner. I was now respectable enough to be
seen in public with the rest of the family.
With my hair and eye cover taken away I felt naked and
exposed. I was self conscious of the duplicity of my appearance, but I looked
the part, and my parents were able to carry off their pretence as parents of a
loving and intact family.
I was
pleased to return to Victoria at the end of the weekend. My fifteenth birthday
was coming up and I wanted to share this with people who cared about me.
Christmas was also only a few weeks away and I was quite content to be one of
the few girls left behind at the hostel, to be spoilt by Miss Allen and
volunteers from the church, who sought to give us a meaningful Christmas. My
Tasmanian family belonged to the past I was happy to forget.
I’d been afraid that, if I was away from the hostel for
too long, I might lose the place I’d created for myself there. The hostel
population was always changing, with girls arriving and others moving on to
different situations, or back to institutional security if they couldn’t conform
to hostel rules. I was always anxious when a new arrival was pending.
Would she be younger than me?
Would her hair be longer?
Would she be prettier, funnier, or more popular?
Would she depose me and take my place?
Most girls came in, served the honeymoon period, and
found their own place in the pecking order. It was generally agreed that older
girls, and those who had been there the longest, held the greater power. There
were exceptions to this though. If a girl was a dag, a dobber, or if she didn’t
conform to the rules of the group, then she didn’t have a chance. Conversely, as
the youngest resident, I was given equal dues as my older peers.
You were expected to be totally honest with your peers,
particularly if you wanted their support in some misadventure or another, but
honesty wasn’t considered a virtue when dealing with the adults in our lives.
New girls, who tried to force their way into acceptance, were given a cool
reception, as were those who boasted about the activities that led them to the
hostel. We were a civilized society, until someone broke the social norms, and
then it was sorted out physically. Somehow I managed to keep myself afloat
through a mixture of bluff and bravado, with some quick thinking wit thrown in
for good measure.
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