Girl on the Edge Read online

  Our home had just four pictures on the walls. In the lounge room, there was a picture of a valley scene, chosen by my mother because it reminded her of the Bellingen Valley, where she had been born and now wanted to return to. In the dining room, there was a country scene with cows grazing that covered most of the wall. The boys’ bedroom had a picture of a boy with a sad face, and tears welling in his eyes. The boy’s near-white hair matched that of one of my brothers. On my bedroom wall was a picture of a smiling clown, also with tears forming in one eye. It was a sad picture. My mother loved it. I was not allowed to change it, or to choose any other pictures for my walls. Four framed baby photographs sat on our piano, and two framed school photos of each of the children. The piano was my mother’s love and she played it with skill and gusto. Apparently, the piano had to come with her to Coolah, or she was not going. In my later teenage years, I saw copies of all four pictures that hung in our home for sale in a number of shops. These pictures were affordable, liked by my parents, and they had filled the spaces on the walls.

  The grazier homesteads had big bold paintings on the walls, art pieces. Often, I also noticed very interesting photographs of their children, scattered throughout the house. These photos were arty shots, such as a crazy smile, or children playing with a hose, not the sit-down-and-pose-for-the-school-photograph shots seen in our home. At one grazier home I had spent months walking past a huge abstract painting that I often looked at, but still had no idea of its subject or meaning. After two years of frequenting that home on weekdays after school, I finally gathered my courage to query the mother about the painting.

  “Could I ask what this painting is of?” I politely asked.

  “It’s art—whatever you want it to be. What do you see in it?” was her reply.

  “I don’t know,” I said, feeling my face turn a shade of pink. I had no idea. I had never been to an art gallery, or studied art at school. To be asked my opinion, or make an interpretation, felt so foreign to me.

  “This painting has a different meaning for every person who looks at it. You need to stand back from it, take your time to look at it and then you decide what it means to you, Kim,” her kind words made my checks blush bright red.

  “Thank you,” I rushed off to play with the children. I felt safe and comfortable with the children, but rarely felt so with those adults.

  Our home had one small bookshelf, filled with encyclopedias and an atlas. As kids, we borrowed books from the school library. Most of the grazier homesteads had bookshelves full of rows and rows of books. These bookshelves caught my eye and I scanned the endless topics. Books with titles for history, politics, world wars, gardening, architecture and novels, on and on the list went. The diversity astounded me, as I had never seen so many books, except in the school library. All different sized books, soft covers, hard covers, bright colours, dull covers, old and new books, small and long titles. Endless books. In some homesteads the bookshelf was attached to the wall, custom made, built to suit the room. I had never seen this in my friends’ homes in Coolah. Those homes were mostly like ours, without bookshelves full of books. My relatives’ homes on both sides were devoid of books too.

  The grazier homesteads also had furniture and house trimmings that were very different to ours. Big, bold furniture pieces made their presence felt. In many rooms the pieces of furniture matched one another, the curtains and the colour of the room matched too. A desk and chair, or an armchair, or both, sat near the bookshelves housed in a study or sitting room. Comfortable chairs near the bookshelf were for sitting on while a person was reading, and nothing else. These furnishings looked and felt expensive. In our home we had practical furniture that did not match. As it broke my father fixed it. We never threw anything out unless it was totally unusable. In our modest home, no spare room or space existed for books, bookshelves and reading chairs.

  Aspiring grazier families put their hands in their wallets to purchase designer clothes in order to fit into the grazier community. Other investments were required to be a proper grazier family, such as a European model car and the right education for their children. These were needed to gain invitations to grazier social functions and to increase one’s prospects of acceptance. I watched changes in the aspiring grazier families as their status and prestige finally increased in the grazier circle. If a family did not fit into the grazier community, they became a kind of grazier fringe dweller, whose failed attempts to fit in were noticeable. The idea of being stuck with the townies, or in between the townies and graziers, held no attraction to the aspiring graziers.

  I babysat for five years, until I was seventeen years old. Mostly I did so on weekends, after school, and during many school holidays. It was worth it—it filled in my spare time and I enjoyed gaining an insight into those families. I was a couple of thousand dollars better off. I always wondered what path each grazier child would take in their adult lives, if they would uphold the graziers’ traditions, or walk or run along an entirely different path. Looking back on those years now, I realise that babysitting was much more than just earning money. Babysitting for those families opened my world up, showing me how much things could differ between families and in their children’s upbringing. The seed had been subtly planted; I had choice in the direction of my life and how I would live it. I did not aspire to become a grazier. Yet to remain a townie was not an option. I wanted something else, but in those teenage years I had no clue yet as to what the something else might be.

  *

  Occasionally, a grazier’s son strayed from the unwritten rules and found excitement with a townie girl. Although a somewhat difficult relationship to sustain, those romances sometimes blossomed. I had watched Sarah, the postmaster’s daughter court Harry, the nineteen year old son of a grazier. His desire for her was evident. The postmaster and his wife encouraged the match—better for their daughter to marry a grazier than a townie. I observed the gradual and subtle changes in Sarah, once their engagement had been announced. Sarah’s physical appearance was the first to change. Her dress code shifted from the jeans, white boots, scanty singlet tops and t-shirts that once lured the young grazier, to collared shirts, trousers and frilly dresses. Laura Ashley dresses replaced cheap clothes that were made in China. She now stood confidently, without slouching or rounded shoulders. Sarah’s rough edges were sanded away, replaced with refined mannerisms. Correct word endings were remembered and the slang and slurring of words ceased.

  Harry’s family had rituals that Sarah needed to adhere to. The family name and heritage were of utmost importance. Birthing a son was a priority, to keep the family name and pass the property onto the son. A grazier family’s expectations of a townie girl’s values and beliefs, political leanings and voting in elections needed to be met. A townie girl could become a grazier’s wife, but this entailed switching sides. A grazier’s daughter was expected to be educated at a boarding school and then to marry into another well-to-do family. Once a townie girl had married into a grazier family, financial woes evaporated. Sarah now drove a posh car. But an expectation to reproduce lingered in the air as the couple visited his parents. Once a baby was born, a place at boarding school was secured in the first few weeks of its life. The grazier family controlled the family wealth and land usage but had no control over the sex of the offspring. The phone call to place the child’s name on the boarding school list was as important as establishing breastfeeding in those first few days of life.

  Years later I speculated on Sarah’s transition from a townie to a grazier’s wife. She needed to fit in as she could never go back. She believed she had come too far and was now beyond being a townie girl. Sarah may have held a fork around the wrong way, licked her knife, rarely used a napkin and begun eating before everyone was seated, but soon she watched, learnt and copied the grazier families and her new friends. She learnt to place a cloth napkin on her lap, hold her cutlery the right way and wait until everyone was seated. She let a grazier commence eating before she took her first modest mouthfu
l by placing the fork delicately to her slightly opened mouth and chewed with her mouth closed. She also learnt to sip from the wine glass, rather than gulp, whilst holding the glass by the stem with two fingers and thumb. As the months passed she did not have to concentrate as hard, as she became more grazier than townie.

  I also imagine that until now she had agreed with her parents’ belief in the rights of workers, a basic award wage and giving the Labor Party her vote. Sarah’s political leanings needed to change. She now placed a tick in the Country Party box on the voting ballot sheet, copying her future family-inlaw and husband-to-be. Over time she convinced herself that this Party truly represented grazier families, their plight and all country people. Sarah’s social mixing shifted from townie friends to grazier friends. Ultimately a “hi” to her old townie friends became a wave and a wave replaced by a nod of her head. As time went by and many nods later she wrestled with her conscience and decided it was easier to simply lose touch with her old school friends. She chose not to nod her head anymore.

  Sarah’s parents’ dress and behaviour had also shifted, to enable them to mix less awkwardly with their future grazier-in-laws. Sarah eventually married Harry and the wedding was on his family’s property. Sarah took on her husband’s family name, ideology, and way of life and embraced the opportunity she had created for her own children. But I wondered if deep, in her core being, a place only she can feel, she was still a townie girl. And if she also conceded that this aspect of her core self was unchangeable, and best to keep it her own secret.

  chapter eleven

  DRESS AND SHOE SHOPPING

  Our special family shopping outings filled me with the joy of leaving Coolah for a day, but also with nervousness, due to the shopping being with my mother. My mother shopped for clothes, shoes and other items unavailable in Coolah or simply cheaper in one of these towns. Always on a Saturday, we arrived in time for the shops to open at 8.30 A.M. at least four times a year. A sense of urgency consumed us because of the need to maximise the three and a half hours of shopping, as all retail shops closed at midday, except the large supermarket. We would separate for the first two hours and then meet up later. My mother and I went in one direction and my father and three brothers in another.

  As the only female child, I was dragged from one daggy middle-aged women’s clothes shops to another. A dress for me to wear at the next social function was always on the agenda. If I protested, my mother would start to yell at me in the main street, so that passers-by could hear us. My face would turn bright red. This outcome was even less appealing than two hours of shopping with her. I yearned to go with my father to avoid the clothes shops and my mother, but that was never going to happen. A long and torturous two hours was inevitable.

  My mother always picked the clothes shop and the clothes for me to try on. I was expected to comply. She would always greet the shop assistant with a warm, “Hello, how are you today?” I would avoid looking or smiling at the shop assistants. My mother’s tactic was to get the shop assistant onside and to develop a connection, as I tried on the dresses. My mother looked through the racks, picking out dresses for me to try on. “This one is nice. Why don’t you try it on,” loud enough for the shop assistant to hear. “I don’t really like that dress,” I would say. A couple of times I might get away with saying this, before my mother’s mood would change. Her hand movements would become rougher, as she pulled out a dress. Her eyes would glare at me, unsmiling. My ability to resist trying on dresses diminished as the tension built. I knew from experience that harsh words and insults directed at me, loud enough for the shop assistant and other shoppers to hear, were about to leave her lips. I would know that the time had arrived to try on at least one dress. Comply, try a dress on and ultimately buy one. My mother never lost a battle.

  “I bring you all this way and you won’t try one dress on,” she would state, kindly, in the presence of a shop assistant.

  “I just don’t like them,” I would reply.

  “You have to buy a dress, this is why I drove you three hours, which cost your father and I a lot of money in petrol,” she self-righteously stated.

  “I thought you came here to do other shopping too,” I would bait her.

  “Don’t get smart with me. You are so ungrateful,” she would reply, as she pulled another dress out. “Just try this one on and see,” she coerced me by handing it directly to me.

  “Okay,” I would sigh. Best to surrender.

  The dresses were always the same, a hem that came well below my knees, prudish and old fashioned. Dresses to cover my slender body and hide me. As I pulled the curtain across I glanced into the large mirror and my very skinny, tall, awkward body was reflected back at me. I was without a skerrick of fat—my body’s athleticism and slenderness was a result of my running training over the years. I despised my body. I felt trapped. The dress slid over me. She always stood there, waiting for me as I pulled the curtain back.

  “That looks nice. It suits you. Step out so I can see it,” my mother’s tone now nicer, as she had got me into an actual dress.

  “Yes, that does suit you,” the sales assistant repeated as she stood next to my mother. The sales assistant had sensed the tension in the air and a high potential for a dress sale.

  “I don’t really feel comfortable in this dress,” or “I don’t need a new dress,” I would say, the only resistance I could muster.

  “Rubbish. With a matching pair of shoes you’ll be fine. We’ll take it,” my mother would smile at the sales assistant. She would smile back. My mother had chosen my clothes again. I was sixteen years old. I swallowed my resentment towards my mother, adding it to the existing bundle—the bundle of resentment that I carried around with me every day.

  On the one hand I would feel relieved that the dress-shopping encounter was over, however, I knew the shoe-shopping expedition was about to begin, as my mother loved to match shoes to my dresses. She insisted on high-heeled shoes. I could never understand why, as I was the tallest in my class by a long way, even taller than all of the boys. Why did my mother want me to wear heels? Was it to be even taller and feel more awkward? Or was it her fixed notion that females should wear high heels? I had a fixed notion too, that I wanted to wear shoes that I could walk comfortably in and in which I did not have to stoop my shoulders over to listen to friends talk. I was fearful of becoming round shouldered—a fear that mother had instilled into me.

  “Stand up straight or you will be round shouldered like your father,” she would say at the most unexpected times. I would comply, standing straight and tall to divert criticism.

  Sometimes I schemed to bypass the shoe shopping expedition by suggesting that the brown shoes I had at home might match a new dress. My back up card was always, “You’ve spent enough money on me today already. Thank you.”

  I also dreaded my mother saying to me that I should wear this new dress to the next school social with a pair of high-heeled shoes.

  On this particular day, as we walked up the street to meet my father and brothers, I looked into the windows of the groovy teenage-girl dress shops and I asked if I could go in and look.

  “No,” was always her response.

  “Why?” I queried. She always responded that the dresses in the window were too short, too revealing, or simply not suitable. If I questioned it, she simply stated that girls should not wear such clothes. As my babysitting money was allocated to me escaping Coolah, I didn’t take it shopping. I was never allowed to shop on my own and I was powerless to persuade my mother otherwise, so I had to accept this.

  I always counted down the two hours and was always relieved to meet up with my father. I could wander with him until we all met up again at midday. He spoke to me with the soft voice he used when he was not under stress. Shopping expeditions always finished at twelve noon on a Saturday when all of the shops closed. There was no time for morning tea breaks on a shopping mission; we all had to wait until lunchtime, once the shops had closed. Our big lunch treat wa
s Kentucky Fried Chicken, my mother’s favourite fast food treat. No fast food outlets existed in Coolah. We all loved the crumb and oil coating on the chicken and gobbled up the chips as well. My mother insisted on a tub of potato and gravy as an extra and encouraged us kids to dip the chips in it. She always managed to scrape all of the content out of the tub with a small bread roll, purchased just for that purpose. I could feel the rim of fat around my mouth and my lips for an hour afterwards. The taste of deep fried crumbs lingered for even longer. After lunch, my mother grabbed essential items and bargains at the supermarket, which was the only shop still open, and filled our car boot to the brim. We then drove home.