[AusRace] Chrissy, Comicquita and Rack Man and Off - The Cup of '62

[Tony Moffat]

This is long, and not all of it is horsey, but Chris is in all of it

 

7.2 CHRISSY++++++++++++++++

 

Chris was born on Australia Day 1950, it was the year Comic Court won
beating Chicquita in The Cup. Comic Court had run in 1949 and 1948, so
he knew where to go, she said. 

 

Chrissy was telling Mum about her day of birth, it was a difficult
time, her being born and that, her mother was kept in hospital for a
year and Chris was with her all that time. Mum got the specifics and
as it was about girls, and that, I pumped up the tyres on our bikes.

 

In 1962 her and me got talking about racehorses, like normal 14 year
olds, both of us on the lie lo, and as luck would have it Paddos Mum
had a difficult time with the new bub and had gone to Sydney on the
medical plane and Paddos Dad had come back and bought The Truth with
him, the Cup Special, with naked horses and almost everything else. We
were looking at them, reading the advice column, and generally doing
the form. Actually, the advice column where I was reading was on the
other side of the sheet that Chris was reading, about Comicquita,
Chicquita and Comic Court

 

Chrissy got the thudding realisation that Comicquita was the child of
the winner and second of the 1950 edition The Cup, the year of her
birth, and there has to be something boss with that, right. It was 50
and 1, she said, I could win 50 with the money in my sock.

 

Let me explain, Chris and I both worked after school, she did the milk
round, she took over from me, and I worked in the wood yard, with
Dave, and his Dad, Dave. Chris got paid in coins and all that went
into her sock, her Barraba Football Club sock hanging on the inside of
her wardrobe, and when that made a noise when she opened the sliding
door and mirror it was time to count it and put most of it into her
savings account. She had 41 pounds and change towards a new piano, the
current one was fine, except it would take so long to save for a new
one she had better start now, type of thing.

 

So this omen she said was very strong, being wrapped in birth parents,
sires and dams, Melbourne Cups, Mr Cummings, and Tamure, her Dads 3rd
wife was Polynesian and that was a spiritual dance. Its all beyond
co-incidence really, don’t you see it.

 

No, but you do Christine.

 

We both had work soon, so we went on our bikes to her wardrobe to get
her money then to the café, on the corner of the lane and the Main
Street and the sp shop was down there a bit, Mr and Mrs Hammond shop,
it was busy there, men were standing, talking, smoking and it was the
afternoon before the Cup. Chris wanted a pound on Comicquita, and
asked me to do it. I said no, but, and before I could explain, Dave,
the Dad of Dave, walked up to ask if I wanted a lift or something. I
asked him to put the bet on for her, and he did, three pounds. She
said thanks, and left to go to the dairy out of town and I went home
to change for work at the woodyard, with Dave and his Dad, Dave, but
you know that.

 

Next day was Cup Day and we were at school, nobody had the radio on,
she was at the convent still and asked a parent who, or what had won
to be told her pick came second. She came and found me walking across
the park to home, I too had heard and said to her well done for going
so close. Chris said she would never bet on anything ever again but
thank you. It was worth a pulpy, shared, and she put extra ice cream
in it and I got my bike and dinked her home. I didn’t know, didn’t
realise she had plonked her three on it, a quid maybe, but she said
she did, and had the winnings spent last night, before sleeping, and
today when she woke up. 

 

Music bought her around, and she played without stopping, and talking,
for twenty minutes or more when I had to go to work. 

 

Chrissy was a friend from primary school and junior high school. She
played the piano all the time I knew her and in her adult life played
in an orchestra, that was her job, her dream job because there was no
money in it. She left town at the end of 2nd year high school to study
music in Sydney, live out west somewhere with her Dad, and catch the
Fish at 6.47am to get to Central at 7.47am, it’s a little earlier and
longer now. She always got a seat in the second carriage, it was
warmer on the left, it was cooler on the right. If it was cold she
caught the bus, from Emu Plains to Strathfield, behind the driver and
so nice with the foot heater going, then she caught a direct train, to
Central, no stops, and she read her music throughout. Funny then, now
people listen to music, then she read it, got lost in it.

 

She played popular music on the piano, some of it top 40, and although
she was tested on the greats, Tit ya cow ski she called him, Bark,
Rack Man and Off, Mussenfart Mozart from the second line of the poem
of the same name and she passed to be graded again, she came back to
music she liked, not what others wanted her to play. She looked at you
when she did, in my case a little over my shoulder, left or right, she
played without looking at her hands, the music sheet was on top of the
baby grand, a Knobe and heavy, beyond her and me, but as I said she
engaged and there was no drama, no dancing of her hands, no closing of
eyes to keep the mood, she played, glanced at the page sometimes, got
criticised because this was her re-writing and playing some poor
beggars work. She said she got the tune, then the melody, worked out
what her left hand was required to do and started with a pente, a
single chord, sustained, then she started, perhaps loud because well,
this was an orchestra, and the bass would mirror hers if he was good.
She learnt it because she played it, repeatedly, 40 seconds in,
flipping heck she’d say, tinkle, my word, to get that bridge to work,
then go back and come at me with a full blown rendition of somebodys
beautiful tune, her way, their life work, her version. More than once
I had to go and buy the 45, will ya, Or source the album, because what
was on the sheet didn’t run down the arms to the fingers to the keys
and the HMV record player helped there. Bull crap, she said, that is
not what it says, she pointed to the speaker, looking at the sheet
music, listening. Nah, they don’t get it either and they are playing
their version, so am I then. Ok.

 

I still own a model plane engine, somewhere, but then I had three,
different sizes, and collected when I purchased going aircraft for
minimal outlays. These were wire controlled jobs and Chrissy and I had
fights with them, she had the bigger engine smaller plane model and I
had the bomber. Its involved, but I would add the ether to the castor
oil and fuel hers, about 7 minutes worth, then dab ether on the intake
foam and start that quickly, this would sit on the ground, the tarmac
in model aircraft speak, revving it’s guts out. Meanwhile I would
start the bomber motor and get airborne with that and do a H pattern,
in model aircraft speak, but in reality a rectangle, and as I walked
the rectangle and got close to Chrissy revving motor on the ground I
knelt and wound in the compression tap on that and off it went.
Chrissy watched it going in ever faster circles on the ground but she
had to step outside me in the rectangle to keep her plane free of my
control wires and away from me basically. It went well most times and
Chris got her speed up and up she came, with a holler from her, rarely
a squeal and more often a giggle, lots of them. Then she had to fly up
behind me and over the top to pass me and meanwhile I circuited
steadily, flat, about eye height for me, and I’m tall and sometimes
she caught me, sometimes she didn’t and sometimes she ran out of fuel
trying to do both those things. The ether supply was a problem because
the chemist sometimes wouldn’t sell it to me, no he said you might
sniff it and turn maniacal, and I thought I was. Dad bought 2 pints of
it back from Sydney so that bump got eliminated. There were others
flying nearby to us too, up at the oval at the showgrounds and this
was the start of the radio controlled era, that is in full swing now.
Then, the radio controlled aspect was more like kerosene control,
those planes got airborne alright and did a few laps and more than
once when they came out of circular flight and went straight they
stayed straight and you watched them go out of sight, way over there
somewhere, out of sight and out of hearing, and the operator pressing
the buttons and the levers with all his strength which didn’t
translate to radio control at all, and the planes getting smaller in
the distance and decreasing in height until there was no more sound,
sight, except the noise of running feet in the direction of the plane
most often. So we felt duty bound to stop our flying, our fun, and we
took a sighter down the track of the last seen plane and we peddled in
that direction and found them often, well they were always found but
not by us always. 

So we peddled back to the strip if we couldn’t see the owners car
nearby where we found the errant plane, put his gear with his gear and
went back to our flying. Once one of those big radio controlled
escapees was found by us and had a rip on the wing, the doctored
fabric there perhaps ripped when it landed in the tree, it was up in
the understorey when we found it. So the owner returned, happy to have
his plane back, despondent at not having a very good radio control box
and angry that I had ripped his plane in recovering it, I hadn’t. The
mother got snippity and I said, look I didn’t, and I wouldn’t be
looking or helping to look in future. So Mum got told about my
criminal behaviour and Mum told her that I wouldn’t be looking for any
escapees either, and nor would Chrissy because she would tell her Mum.
The plane was for sale in the next paper that came out. My planes were
double doped, they had two layers of fabric on the wings, fuselage and
control surfaces because that is one way to make them really robust.
They needed that added robustness because in the early days I crashed
frequently, often skying in a stall then crashing, powering into the
dirt from there, but they never broke or got ripped.

 

It was fun, it was, and perhaps we were exposed to the principles of
flight, restricted as it is. Chrissy was fascinated, truly, and read
and read, and was rarely without her bible Flight without Formulae. I
gave her the bomber and she cut her hand on the propeller, the first
knuckle joint of the index finger, it was revving up and bouncing in
place, and she reached in to tighten the compression bolt and the
propeller arc got her good, there was blood from the cut, so what does
she do? She kept at it, the plane circling on the ground, all revved
up and nowhere to go then she whipped her T shirt off with one hand
and wrapped that around her hand. She had her bikini top on, so there
was decorum and civility, well there was until I got up to her, she
was still laughing and bumping with her buttocks as my hands roamed,
tickling and touching the square feet of available skin. That plane
went up on fast level flight, the pain meaning concentration and
application of technique. So she flew her plane until the fuel load
went and she coasted, glided it in perfectly, and we looked at her
hand and the cut. It was ok, but I’m not a doctor and neither is she,
she wanted another go round but we didn’t. I strapped my plane on my
back, put the other stuff in the crate on the back of my bike, she
hopped on the cross bar holding her oversize plane, away from her and
away from that hot engine and off we scooted, heading for her home,
wash off the blood and apply a band aid, perhaps some gentian violet,
the antiseptic of choice back then. We got home to be met by her
mother, asking why her kid was flashing her bikini top to all and
sundry, both of those being me, Chris didn’t answer that but said
look, he gave me a plane a plane of my own, aren’t I lucky, isn’t he
nice. Again the bikini top question and straight away another question
about why her t shirt had blood on it and why was it wrapped around
her hand. Chrissy hands are special, they always are but hers were her
future livelihood, the piano playing maestro she would become, and
have I wrecked all that by causing her finger to be cut open, with the
ligaments and bones exposed, blood poisoning from the plastic, and she
was so angry. I had put all our gear on the veranda, the planes, the
crate with the fuel and parts, rags, a banana skin, a water bottle,
and when Chris said about her new ownership of her own plane her
mother picked up a pot plant and dropped it on the plane, breaking it,
the fuselage crushed and nearly separated, nearly broken into two
parts. My thinking was that it was an overreaction, more so because
she had broken my plane, the one I was going to keep. Chrissy wrestled
with her Mum, there were swear words and jostling and this crazy dance
going on amongst the pieces of my plane. I saved the other plane and
ran to the roadway verge with it, I scooped up everything else into
the crate I had, an apple box made of pine, then went and held
Christine away from her mother. It seems there had been a pre-existing
conflict, believe me I heard about most of them but this one had not
been told. Christine had to wear turtle leather gloves if she was
doing dangerous things, and yes, getting hit with a propeller would
qualify as the result of a dangerous thing. So it quietened a bit, and
the Mum apologised for her behaviour to me, but not to Chris who was
in tears, from the event that just occurred, from the shame it seems,
more than embarrassment anyway that the event had caused her, for the
loss of the plane which angered her, and caused her mother to
apologise again, then again, to me when it hit home that she had
destroyed something of mine, not Christine’s. I stayed for a while and
it cooled, there was tension, sure, and Christine said sorry to her
Mum for the wrestle, which she won, and the Mum said sorry for what
she had done. After 30 minutes or so we got to the real reason we were
there, the doctoring and dressing of Chrissy pinky. Mum took her to
hospital and they took the band aid off and put another one on so our
plastering skills were pretty good overall. Chris came home to our
house after a while and she lay crosswise on the bed and she
explained, in detail, the fingers protection required now, and the
reason for it. I have highlighted it somewhat by talking about it, but
there was no extra or added precaution, except the silky gloves she
wore, turtle leather it said on the packet, when gardening, or nailing
or extra curricular stuff that might cause her finger or fingers to be
damaged, just wear the gloves in that case and I think she might have,
milk deliveries, watching me in the wood yard, watching, those kinds
of things. Within two days the finger healed and she never stopped
playing, practicing all the while. She kept the bomber and flew it
occasionally after that. I disassembled my smashed plane and kept the
bits that I could, the control mechanism, the engine and tank, the
ailerons, and the rest I burnt, it flared and disappeared within a
minute. I got a hug while this was happening and a sorry from her to
me. Wire controls were old fashioned in model plane flying and the
best I could do was buy a second hand plane from the paper when I was
in Sydney next. I bought 3, a pound each, one had a non-functioning
motor that did go with some coaxing then seized in flight, oh no a
plane crash but it survived and I had a spare motor anyway. Those
planes did not survive several moves by Mum and Dad and I was not
there to ensure their safety, their survival, and they went the same
way as my clothes from when I was 10 or younger, into the bin and out
with the garbage. I had an engine, a motor, in a different spot and
this was saved, you could say, but an engine without a fuel tank, with
out fuel, without a plane or some flight surface and a method to
control it is just an engine and nothing else, perhaps a sinker.
They’re are diesel in principal and mine had no muffler, quitener, and
the noise was part of the experience, now they have formed exhausts
which assists the energy production, a lot. Those engines were tiny,
the next size up takes you into the glow plug area, where you heat up
the engine before trying to manually start it, still flipping the prop
with that distinctive sound, compression without ignition. Somebody
has attributed 290 horsepower to a litre from those motors, although
they are only 3 cc in volume, they measured the output then multiplied
it to get that ridiculous power production figure, perhaps they were
salesman, probably used to selling racing bicycles or similar.

 

With Chris,I don’t know what she ate, ok, I saw her eat sometimes but
she didn’t eat much. Nor was she skinny, and not anything other than a
normal girl, with curves and everything. But the eating was a tea bag
mug of tea at my place, and my toast, dry, sitting with Mum looking at
clothes in Woman’s Day, one leg up and that foot on the seat and
sitting on the other. She had fruit at school, sometimes, and an
occasional lolly, chocolate caused her problems so did milk. Her one
treat was jubes, and she stopped at five, she said she was full but
squeamish was more like it. Otherwise she was good, good to be with
and around. I have been lucky with my choices, my choices, no there is
a mutuality more often, a happy place for me and them, my mates, and
often they specialise and become closer, and in this case we got
together then got together.

 

There is a commonality here, between girls I know and showers and
Chrissy was no exception. Often, alright sometimes we would get back
to our house, filthy, sweaty, dirty, from riding, exploring, doing
things. Chris would ask to have a shower then went, then wanted me to
come and talk to her, so I sat in the hallway opposite the door and
could see skin for a short while, hair at various locations, and
conversation always. Come in here, don’t make me yell, but I didn’t. I
think nudity didn’t scare her, and to me, nudity was an invitation to
do other things, but to her it was a natural state of being, two
friends. I never got nude, I never went in there, close to her and
when she re-appeared she was clean and dressed and refusing a kiss
because it was my turn to shower now and I closed the door. Then when
I was clean, slightly red and warm, then I got that kiss.

 

Mum and her were a pair, I think Mum thought that this woman child was
going to steal her little boys virginity, and there was an uneasiness
there, respectful but a distance, helped or seeded by Chrissy Mum
talking to my Mum about me and Chrissy, and I’m thinking the topic of
my viginity, not forgetting Christine either, were discussed.

Chris guessed what it was about and I didn’t realise, I had no idea
that I was the prize in some sort of competition or game, and if I had
realised perhaps I would have got unwrapped earlier, or at least
undressed, no seriously.

 

We didn’t though, we did stuff but not that, we did kissing and
holding, hugging and nothing more. Remember how old we were too, and I
was older than her by a year and 18 days.

Chris bought up the topic of Mum steering me, away from Chris and
towards chastity, purity, and non-involvement of sins of the flesh.
They are not saying don’t be with him, just not away by yourselves for
days, afternoons, evenings. Chris said she enjoyed her time with me,
our times kissing especially as it was not an end of episode activity,
if Chris wanted a kiss, she went and got it, with me it was necessary
for me to sneak and hold her for a time, hug that form, and in a
little while she would turn to face me and well, you know what comes
next. That’s how it was, license free for her, a ritual, glorious as
it is, a ritual for me. But no sex, and nothing sexual let me hasten
to  add, nothing. 

 

I was doing the tea dishes and I asked Mum if she thought Chris was
too much girl for me, that’s what I said. Mum lit one up and leant
against the kitchen counter and said, well, is she, whats happening.
So I said, truthfully, we were kissing and hugging, holding hands, and
that was enjoyable and expected and while I knew about other things I
had not experienced them yet.

the furthering of intimacy Mum said, and I had to say, sorry, what.

Sex, bub, and I said no, no sex, Chris wouldn’t do it I said, Chris
has never talked sex with me, she has, and truly we are just good
friends.

You know about the birds and bees. Mum, yes, I have condoms, so.

Well that started her going didn’t it? So half way through her
interrogation, I showed her the condom in my wallet, Earls Lubricated
Sheath, normal size wise, and normal mothers would have shed a tear
when the fruit of their loins demonstrates a cleaving of nurturing and
shows a bit of independence and forethought, a pinch of maturity then.
Not my Mum apparently, she bloody laughed at me. And I laughed with
her. Not sure why but when she said, give it to me I want to tell Dad,
and I gave over the condom, and she rubbed it in its packet between
her thumb and finger. I have others, frangers, and really it is a sort
of currency at high school, a repayment for a favour, here have one of
these. I heard Dad laughing, loudly, and I stayed away, I took my
comic into the toilet and I heard him walking down the hall onto the
rear veranda and into my room, then he said through the door, Oi
Gaylord, there is something on your bed. It was the condom and we
never had the talk.

 

It took a few days but I bought the subject up with Chrissy, not the
sex, not straight away, the condom conundrum, show me she said, so I
did, and then she opened the packet, rip, and out it came with all its
greasy slipperiness.

I had no idea she said, aren’t you sneaky. Was I sneaky, no, and
believe me, we had never talked about sexual congress, that’s what
they call it in the textbook, never snuck away to do that, and really
we found private moments, places, times, to be together as a couple,
and we did young teen things and that’s all.

Chris said I have thought about it, sure, but no, not yet. I said the
same. We remained friends as a result. Yes, I lied to my mother, did
you see it, and do you know why. There was a talk about sleeping
together, somewhere, just to snuggle to use her words, nothing more,
just get warm and sleep. We didn’t do that either, we talked about it
but no, didn’t happen. I gave her 3 condoms. She kept two and made a
plastic animal kind of thing with the interior blown up and everything
all twisted. 

 

I owned a road registered car, a Ford Pilot ute, v8, with manual gears
on the steering column, and this before I had my drivers licence. I
got my drivers licence in Dads car, the EJ, and the same day I got my
motorcycle licence, with a newish 250cc Suzuki Hustler.

 

The worst punch, or the best punch, I ever saw was over the use of a
towel. What happened was somebody had teased a girl, a little girl,
young, 10 or less. It was ridiculous teasing, like it’s my towel, you
can’t have it, and that type of thing, apparently the words said by
the teaser, then the teaser wiped himself with the towel then threw
the towel up onto the top of the fence where it was caught and tangled
by the barb wire. Cry now, you big baby was the parting goad to the
little girl and he said if she told anybody he would rape her and off
he went, towards the pub lane.

Chris was at the pool, with her sisters, waiting for me to finish work
in the wood yard and come down there to cool off, to at least get rid
of the wood staining on my legs and hands and arms. Chrissy saw and
heard what happened, saw the boy, a man actually, say and do the
things I wrote. She told me when I got there, the girl had gone, the
man had gone, the towel was still up on the barb wire. I had a swim,
and a talk about this, and together, with help from Phil the pool man
and his ladder, we got the towel down. At that moment the father of
the girl showed up, his interpretation was that I would help him find
and punish the man involved, the teaser. I was 14 years old and I
wasn’t going to get involved in any affairs involving the father and
the man. I do not know his name, the teaser or the father. So the
father drove off, I guess to go looking, but actually he went
recruiting, his friends got into a posse and they went about the town
apparently looking for the man, the teaser. I was not part of this, I
was with Chrissy and almost at her home with her sisters when the
father drove up and asked Chris to go with him to point out the
teaser, the man, and Chris said no, he is about 20, thin, tall, boney,
with black hair and he had football shorts on and a singlet. That
narrowed it down to three, all three got found and belted up, no other
word for it, they did a mass attack on three likely blokes and punched
them until they ran away. If the towel man was in that group he was
dealt with but how could you tell doing it that way. A day later the
Police spoke to Chrissy, and to me, and I was not needed, but they
spoke to Phil at the pool and as it turned out the towel man did get
caught. It went quiet for a while, a couple of days, then there was
another attack on the towel man, he was belted again and the belter
got found out and was charged. There was a group outside the
courthouse when he first appeared, a few weeks later, and there were
words, punching back and forth, kicking from one side and the Police
waited for it to settle, and took four away, and they were charged
with assaulting the father.

 

That night it got noisy in town and down the Main Street, which is
where I lived there was shouting, and probably a fight, and then the
father came up the street and was standing outside the hall, opposite
my house when a man ran at him with a rake, the father avoided the
rake and in the process put out a short right, or was it a left, and
this connected with the rake swinger and you saw its affect throughout
his body, there was an energy transference from his head to his neck,
to his shoulders to his back, to his hips, to his legs to his feet.
The next sound, after the phaat of the hit, was the rake falling to
the ground with the rake swinger falling side on after that, down and
staying down, the father looked at the man on the ground, moved him on
his side then walked into the Club. The man on the ground did not
move, and I left my spot, near the geraniums, turned off the hose and
went to where he was. I looked at him and his eyes were, seriously,
rotating, his eyeballs were searching for something to focus on and
missing the mark completely. Then he became sick, vomited, how much
food had he eaten, liquid pie or something. He stopped that, he was
covered in that really because it had pooled and ponded around him. My
offer was to help him up, help him over the road, and spray him clean,
near the geraniums to maximise the water use. He said ok and we did
that, I gave him a severe drenching but got most of the clinging bits
off him and he took control of the hose and got the remainder. He sat
on the fence and asked for a smoke and I went to get him one of mine
and when I came back he was fossicking in Dads car, the door was open
and he was looking inside, the front then the back seat, looking for
something to steal I thought, fossicking. Sorry he said, I gave him a
smoke and a light and we stood without speaking. Then a group of cars
came back, the fathers friends and they were looking over the road for
something, I’m guessing they weren’t looking for the rake, they found
that, but not the rake holder because he was kneeling down behind Dads
car, hiding I assumed. Then they left and it went quiet and the man
stood, unsteadily, then left after asking for my smokes, I said no,
then he tried to bully me to get my smokes, me, the angel who sprays.
So I watered the lawn where the sick was, I re watered the geraniums,
I washed the car and when Mum and Dad came home I said nothing to them
about what had happened. I don’t know if the man who got punched and
got sick was the teaser. 

 

The father pleaded guilty, did the right thing, apologised for his
actions, did not avail himself of two of the 7 excuses available to
him, just stood and spoke to the Magistrate and said he felt an
overwhelming anger towards the victim for the torment and the trauma
he had caused his child. He was given a suspended sentence, to be of
good behaviour for 12 months, he was a first offender, a Vietnam vet,
an ex soldier of 12 years standing, they had left the town at this
stage, the child needed counselling and more. The teaser skipped bail
and he was re-arrested twice more. He was charged with a public order
offence only

 

The court case involving the other men didn’t go ahead, I heard it was
because the witnesses did not show up to speak. The Police tried a
couple of times to get it heard, to get it out in the open but those
involved couldn’t be bothered perhaps, or did not want the prime cause
to be aired, the taunting, the torment of a 10 year old girl and the
taking and using of her towel and the threat associated.

 

The railway line ends on the other side of the river here, they would
not build a bridge to allow entry to the town and they had no
intention of extending the line further west, along the river. Where
it comes from is interesting, its flat really flat and the line has
been built up, on a bank above the plain, for water control perhaps.
The line itself is rough, in fact, you would be surprised how bumpy it
looks, with dips all along it everywhere and to see the train
approaching and it rocking from side to side as it goes in and out of
the dips, that is a sight to behold. Chris and I did that trip lots.
In fact, it was probably the trip of choice for us, especially on
Monday arvos late when the train was due, you would try to get out
alongside the line opposite the white bridge on the road, then run
down the creek and get under the line there just as the train went
over head. Hey, it’s a country town. Chris would scream, and I would
call out. We both laughed after that. Some days we didn’t do much,
just went to her house while she played the piano, she was very good
at that. She made a living out of doing that later, and still does,
and has played in quite a few bands, orchestras.

 

Christine situation was similar to mine, or the mirror of it I should
say. She is the oldest by about 5 years, then there are her step
sisters. She sees her natural father still, a couple of times a year,
he has a girlfriend now, he re married after divorcing Chris Mum but
he went for a younger girl. Christine talks to me about it, I listen
that’s all, she doesn’t want advice, I mean what can you say. If she
could murder the girlfriend and get away with it she would, she would
to save her Dad she says. I laugh but I’m not sure why.

I’m an orphan, no I’m not, an only child then, no not true either but
my brother is 9 years older, and my sisters, three, are 2 years older
each from that. So the year I started school my sister was finishing
the last year then went away to Uni, they all did, to school later
then Uni. I was with Mum pretty much, and I didn’t mind. Mum liked
Chris, but she did have reservations about her, really Mum liked
everybody, I think everybody did like Chris, she had shorter light
brown hair which we dyed black one holiday, and it took most of that
time for the hair colour to come back and for the stains to leave my
hands, should have worn gloves like it said.

 

I worked for the milkman 3 days a week, and Chris was often on the
truck with me, organising the next saucepan load. It was bulk on the
truck, in a churn, cold, and we took measured pots of milk from there,
a quart minimum, with a flip lid on it and I ran through the front
gate, jumped the dog, took the money out of the bottom of the saucepan
and sluiced in the milk, Chris blew a whistle, and I ran back to the
truck again and Arra drove off to the next one. We had cream, glorious
yellow cream spun off from the hospital milk, they wanted cream free
for the babies and the clinic, and we made a shilling every pint we
sold of that, it was cheap and it was nice. Chris and I had a drink of
that as we drove around. Just a sip for both of us because it can make
you sick sometimes. She bought jubes and we had jubes and cream, which
sounds strange but tasted ok. As fast as Arra could drive around
safely we did the deliveries. The big buyers were  the cafes who used
milk in their shakes. They bought the big containers out to the truck,
they had iceblocks in the containers and we poured the milk in them,
straight out of the master churn, a big 60 gallon I think, stainless
steel contraption. Arra measured that, I did the loading, and Arra
collected the money, then there was the hospital who took the most
milk, some of that was paid for by the Government and the rest was
with a cheque and we delivered milk to the kitchen there.

Chris continued to do the milk run after I left it, I split my money
with her, it was a few shillings only and that was the reason I left
really.

 

Chris left town at the end of that year to go to school and to do
music at a college and to live with her father.

 

We had a band in town and Chris was in that, as was I, both singing,
her playing, and me making noises on the drums sometimes, when the
regular drummer was unable to play due to ill health, he was very sick
actually, and bass, strung for a left hander, my own, when the regular
bass player became a DJ for the gig and really I just did harmonies on
the G string and not much else. I started playing a few stanzas in
from the start, it was so obvious that I had not a clue, as a parent
said about us. But if there was a bit of boogie about it then we were
passable, some said. Chris was the best of that though, we played at
the school hall, it was records and us, and really we were the music
at intermission, some Roy Orbison, a Chuck Berry or 3, Everley
Brothers and Buddy Holly. I didn’t have a microphone when on the
drums, this may have been a blessing. But we did our best and we
passed music at school so that was a bonus.

 

I had footy training twice a week, and Chris had basketball near that.
We went together, sat together, and that was the last we saw of each
other until after. She waited in the cold for us to finish, all
glowing hot and sweaty, and we walked to her house, holding hands, and
later we used to kiss at the park before we got there. It was now
about 9.00pm and she went inside after saying goodbye at the door, her
Mum often invited me in but I had my footy boots around my neck, a
towel, mud, grass clippings and I couldn’t sit anywhere because of
mud, grass clipping, sweat. So I ran home from there to a shower and
then, about 9.30pm Chris would ring and we would talk for 10 minutes
or so and it was time for bed. Mum found this perplexing, Mum would
say I’ll just check if he is in, Geez Mum you are the controller of
little big young me, you know I’m in the house, but yeah, she would
ask, do other boys get late night phone calls from their friends, a
girl in this case. To which I would say Yes Mum then I don’t know Mum
and it’s only Chrissy, you know her. She wanted more info though. 

 

The other nights I had work in the wood yard and Chris did music then,
piano practice. Friday afternoon and evening was often with Chris, at
home or at the pictures but I sometimes had work at the exchange on
Friday, and nearly always on Saturday. We sat together, but in a group
downstairs at the pictures. Christine surprised me once because really
she had never shown much affection, I was often reaching for her, or
holding her from behind, just for the basic 22 seconds or less then
she moved off. I asked honestly if we would be kissing sometime soon
and she started there and then, after the first squirm it got to be
ok, and we did that a lot, well when it was expected. Anyway this
night at the pictures she cuddled me, I mean, put her head on my
chest, put her arms around me, and cuddled me. It was ok, I like that,
and it surprised the group, there were no other girls that night with
us, but Chris did that together with me from that time on. 

 

Working on the exchange means phone calls, from all over the place,
sometimes from all over the world although I just patched them through
to International Pacific mostly or International Atlantic and the
operator took it on from there. Then that operator would ring me to
find out who I was, just a chat that’s all. But Chris would ring
sometimes at strange hours and we would talk for ages, hours almost,
just whispers from her, then to hang up she had to unplug the phone,
put the receiver down carefully, then plug the phone in again, that
way it doesn’t ring or go ting when it energises. But that was
enjoyable, those midnight and later talks, it was always her ringing
me, dial 07 for the operator and I would answer then how are ya, then
an explanation of how the picture finished, or the second feature
ended, who was smoking now, it is impressive how much small talk two
teens can make and we did, and strangely we talked longer on the phone
than in person, nothing wrong with us is there.

 

It ended when we went away, both of us, her to school and me to footy
camp in the holidays and when I came back she was gone as I expected.
Nothing even vaguely private had occurred between us, there was
kissing, and I knew how to do that, there was long periods of holding
and hugging and talking, but the eventuality was known well in advance
and we prepared ourselves for that, sounds dramatic but she said lets
see how we go at doing our things apart and I agreed, knowing it was
finished.  Nice friend, honest and true. There had never been a harsh
word, an indecision, an argument, once we disagreed over a tennis
score but there was a packet of PK at stake here. She never declared
me as her boyfriend, rather a friend who is a boy she would say
without prompting, he is nice was another of hers, and I did not
trumpet her as the one and only, that it was Chris and Me, that was a
given really, you saw us everywhere together, me and her, or us, me
and the others and Chris. I moved school that year too, she stayed at
the Convent and I went to the high school and there was a new bunch to
associate with. Tall and thin, she preferred shorts to anything,
winter and summer, and she was 96% leg anyway, girls often are, with
longish hair at the end, brown, always down and out and if control was
necessary it was in an off centre tail, over her left shoulder. She
wore bangles on her left wrist and a scapular always except at the
pool. She was the first girl of any age to wear a bikini, although her
little sisters often only wore their undies but that doesn’t count.
The Nuns asked her not to wear the bikini, ever, but to be
appropriately attired, so she wore shorts and a t shirt after that.
She argued with her mother, and there seemed a lot of exasperation
there. I never got that story, she vented on other things but not
about her Mum, I suggested it was because her mother was right and she
was wrong and Chris said, probably. You got castigated for swearing,
she said bloody often, it’s not swearing she said by way of
explanation, she tried smoking, she sipped alcohol a couple of times,
sherry and beer, and said no thanks after that. 

 

She played piano beautifully, well I thought so, and she looked at you
when she played, or looked out the window to the side, occasionally
she glanced down at the sheet music, always on top, it was a grand
style, and never, or hardly ever did she look at her hands, her
fingers, as she played. If there was a glance down it was her right
hand, then her eye moved to the side of the keyboard, off the keyboard
perhaps, she did say that, as if that left ear was the one in use for
this piece. She said she learnt the music by repetition, and that the
composer was just suggesting where you should be in the melody but
after 12,15 or even 20 run throughs she will tell you she knows it.
She found a composer she liked, an American, obscure, who had written
for guitar mostly and his daughter transcripted that for piano after
he died, about 70 songs, tunes, pieces, pianoforte, light opera or
music hall music, country melodies, country and western waltz, and a
few bar room stompers, full of the art of piano playing, no key left
untouched and some of the key board hot from the action. She played,
practiced, and if it was not right, she kept the right hand moving and
looked for the correct tune in the papers on top, then the tunes
joined when she got that right and she played to the break or the
bridge, then she might go back to the start and play through. But
looking, no, not at you, not at anything particular. Just zoned, the
music, the sounds, and then you realised she was probably not looking
at you when she was playing because you would move and her head and
eyes would move in response, so she might have been somewhere else,
over your left shoulder maybe. But competence she had and technique.
There was practice everyday, not scales so much, just perhaps a few
tests to get the spread right, she had big hands, or big fingers on
big hands. 

 

There was all the classics, Mum music, a few from the broadway shows,
a lot of popular tunes and there was good, really good, tunes in them.
Ok, some were a variation on a theme, but most often she was playing
anything from the top 10 of the hit parade, the rhythm working and the
lead picking out the tune, the words, and me in my tuneless singing
would do just that. That’s what we did at her place, no mucking about,
we were there, there was a piano there, play the piano, get the
designated 2 hours practice out of the way. She was single minded with
that too, no teach me to play something requests were granted. No, a
lot of sssh, I want to get this down, and she would cycle through a
tune several times, many times, and some times a request of ‘you have
that record doncha, can you get it I want to hear it I can’t get that
last part’. I would, I get that 45 and ride back and forth, there were
other things to get too, a banana, an eraser because mines at school,
water the back garden. She had classes but split with the teacher
locally, the teachers days did not correspond with hers, Chrissy,
there was a money issue, payments and she bubbled and boiled along
doing her own thing for a while until she was given a week each
holidays to go to tutoring in Sydney. I believe competency was ok, but
you have to play through certain levels, be judged on that, and move
and grow with it otherwise no professional organisation will employ.
It’s a job, playing an instrument, and there are so few vacancies that
you have to be the best and then be nude, or have different hair or
piercings, or tattoos and she wanted them, and you had to know the
styles, ¾, bossa nova, swing, waltz and I don’t know any others but
she had to. In effect, her education suffered, these are her words
now, she was locked in at 12 year old form and while good at that had
not progressed any where from that. It was music, she loved it, and
the rest could wait. She didn’t think it was going to be the classics,
playing at the opera house, she did popular music there and not some
maniac long hair opus with movements that were 11 minutes in duration.
No, popular music in a band, never say band but say orchestra, and she
could only name three and they had players queueing. Well, start your
own, Chrissy and the Slew Foot Five or something. I think that’s been
done. She wrote, she did quick tunes with jazz phrasings, repetitive
technical pieces that showed her abilities, and stored them on top of
the piano hoping that would be the centrepiece in a longer tune. She
would not write about love, failed romance, not much of a hetrosexual
couple at all, in fact I got ahead of myself, there was a few words,
just feelings, descriptive jottings with sentences that changed often,
again perhaps the centre piece of a longer tune. Her words, made up on
the spot and in league with the music, also made up on the spot, was
often about girls, girls and girls, and the intensity of friendship
there, the life of them. This would build in her psyche from then to
her later life when she did have the real thing, genuine friendship,
love and life with a girl. This was secretive at first, the protection
of anonymity necessary to maintain their careers but earlier than
most, and at last, they came out to their friends and the world and
may be accepted as an institution now, Chrissy and her friend. 

 

She liked to hold you, and I didn’t mind that, we would peddle
somewhere, along the tops of the levee, a track about two vehicles
wide then run off down a ramp to a grassy area, our place, amongst the
tracks I had made but out of sight, more because of the topography
rather than any design or ideas of mine, and I would still be on the
bike, and her on hers and she would reach across and encircle you,
it’s as if our place was the only place for us, the first thing she
did when we got there was a hug, that’s the reason we came here and
this is what we were going to do when we got here. The bikes got
dumped and we sat against the sloping wall of the levee, the river was
a distance away, you could hear and see it, and I had my arm around
her shoulders and she encircled me, her legs over mine, and we talked
that’s all, important stuff, about how wood delaminates on pianos, how
stickers and transfers on bikes don’t last like they used too, about
her toes, long toes and fingers, so you can play the piano, what with
my bloody toes, crazy boy, about scagi worms, the long thick native
worms which were becoming extinct, as thick as your little finger,
about kites and how useless are they here, no wind ever this far
inland, about the colours of football jumpers and she was an expert
because she knew all the combinations and some team over towards
Baradine or Barraba had the best, the colours of the country and the
sky, a V, the colours extended to the socks, to the team blazers, to
the blazers. Another was all green, jumper, shorts, socks and this
showed a lack of imagination, another was red and orange, that’s a
clash, neither or either, it’s one or the other. Chrissy talked, I
listened, I talked, she listened, there was none of the waiting to
interrupt, none of the oneupmanship, the oh yeah what about this then.
A lot, well, everytime, there was a brief talk about kites, she liked
the wind, and had a collection of wind driven machines, whirligigs,
eagles, tipping birds, mills, stracers, lots of most things collected
or built from diagrams in magazines, library books, aviation books,
everything. The no wind factor here was perplexing, if there was a
wind she was standing on tippy toes on the top of the levee, arms out,
shirt out, cardigan out, catching and feeling it pass her, go round
her, under and over. Wind Milly was a proposed nickname for less than
18 seconds, once and once only, apparently she did not approve. None
of this solved the lack of wind, and fart jokes meant nothing to her,
nothing.

 

We solved that wind conundrum, the railway station and the fuel depot
were 1700 yards apart, a big upright holding tank for diesel, and a
horizontal tank for petrol, ramps and stages for loading, and over
head pipes for filling up 44 gallon drums, the container of choice
around here. The train came to the station first and there were fuel
carriages on the back of that and the engine separated those and
Bracer, the engineers son, arranged for us to ride on the last
carriage as it got taken to the depot. Christine and I with Bracer and
another were on the last carriage as it moved, moderately paced,
towards the depot but it was enough to get the kite airborne and
diving and skying as a kite should, Chris doing the controlling,
standing on drums, with sooty legs and pants, silver paint chips on
her feet, a smile always and her laugh. It was damaged, kite death
nearly but we repaired it while the engine went around to hook up to
the empty carriages, the open big long ones with sides and on the
return to the station it really went kite-like, more out than up, but
we made wind for it, for her, and we got filthy, sooty, diesel residue
on our feet and legs, arms and clothes. The train slowed, the kite
nearly got retrieved, nearly got it on board and it hit the rocks near
the rails and got dragged and ripped up, tore up, torn apart. Didn’t
matter to Chris, she would make another any time, bamboo sticks and
brown paper, this one was bamboo and pink tissue and was nick named
‘Non-Chalance’ because of it’s unwillingness to be a kite, up until
this point in time. Bracers Dad was in on the treat, so it was ok.

Best birthday ever she said, the Box Brownie got hot from use I reckon
and she had those photos stuck side on on her mirror for a while, her
smiling face, her head and shoulders, her arm up holding the string,
and the kite in view beyond that, not high but more out than up, need
more balance she said, more weight in the tail piece, to hold the nose
up a bit.

 

The next one she made was extensively tested on the bike, adding and
subtracting balance weight, shifting the string tie on spot, glueing
the sticky tape for extra strength and it seemed perfect. We tested it
along the levee, her peddling like a maniac, holding with one hand
while she zagged and zigged along. Don’t you know it we finished at
our spot and the kite got wrapped, and I got cuddled and kissed.

 

She kept the photo but gave me the kite and I had that for years,
unflown from a train though, never again. 

 

Bracer was crazy, and I did crazy. Twice we went off on the train, the
rail motor, it was sitting at the end of the platform, out of the way
kind of and we went on board, is that what you do, all aboard, just us
and walked the length of the two carriages and got to that end driving
compartment, he sat, pulled a lever left, a lever down, there was a
hiss, the motor started and in 4 seconds time  we moved. His Dad came
out of his office and Bracer waved at him, waved back at him I meant,
and we trundled, rocked and rolled, and noisily went out to the first
wooden bridge, about a mile out, more maybe, and before the road. We
stopped there, coasted to a stop then couldn’t change the driving
pattern over to the other end. So we put the brakes on and that fixed
it. Remember that, in order to reverse direction you have to have the
brakes applied, got it. So we could now idle back the other way so we
did, giggling like kids, which we were. We did that most of the
afternoon, promising not to cross the road which is a no-no somehow,
and we didn’t. We actually saw 18 miles an hour sometimes, speed hogs.
In the end it was about 2 hours before departure and we stopped where
we started, Bracers Dad came on board and re-set everything and the
regular staff started and nothing was said. 

 

There are no steam trains here, just the relatively lighter rail
motors and smaller engines pulling small lines of carriages along the
plains, slowly, you can pace them on your pushbike, and if the driver
was so inclined he would toot you. How they didn’t tip off the rails
with there fast flip flop left and right movement over the bumpy
track. There was a stack of coal at the work yard at the  station, it
was behind a fence, in a barbed wire enclosure with a locked gate and
with lights on all day and night, there was a refuelling bowser with a
tank to hold the fuel and further along was a turn around T, the train
ran up one side, away from the line, they flipped a crossing switch,
the train backed down the other side back onto the main line now, and
was magically facing the other way as a result, it ran up past the
station and the waiting carriages, then backed down the line to hook
up to its load, the carriages were swept, the windows cleaned and it
sat there waiting for something to happen. Not a lot did though, 4 in
trains a week, 6 passengers total, 2 tons of parcel freight,
importantly the ice cream came on the train in big rugged up
containers with dry ice in them and not a lot of anything much on the
way out, my bike once when I sent it off to be repainted, three
greens. 

 

When Bracers Dad took the train to the T we went with him, it’s a
country town as I said. The coal storage was interesting, the gate was
open and Bracers Dad was taking barrow loads from there to the station
for the office fire. Chrissy picked up and dropped a few pieces and
there were imprints of plants, leaves, flattened but you could see
them, so we spent a while finding some more, it is a long process, and
we got black dust on us, everywhere. We took our three pieces and
Bracers Dad put one of those on display, in a glass fronted box on the
wall of the waiting room with a light on it so you could easily see
the definition of the imprinted leaf. Chrissy took hers to school
wrapped in paper and showed us kids and the Nun said what is this
Christine, a fossil Sister, a fossil and how do you explain this
fossil in relation to the catholic edict of which you are supposed to
live your life, and the life of your partner and children Christine.
Christine mouth moved a bit and there were no sounds and when she
spoke it was not about fossils, Chrissy said I am undecided about a
partner, there will be no children, no children I am certain of that
Sister and the coal was bought here as an interesting fact, not to be
at cross purposes with anything you say or teach us Sister. No
children Christine, marriage and children are catholic tenets aren’t
they, marriage and children go hand in hand with your future life
young lady, remember that. Alright, enough nonsense, children class
now. Get rid of that, throw that away please, now.

 

Christine looked at her fossil, looked around, wrapped it up and put
it aside. That lovely coal and its leaf is at the high school were
years of kids, schooled in the real world, can, and could, and still
do wonder about how the leaf got in there. Mine, my coal fossil, we
broke into ever smaller pieces and set fire to it in the back yard,
disappointing somewhat, and how it boils water for steam in a train
must be an act of God, applying the rules of the Nun there. There was
no flame, some smoke, minimal heat and I thought it was out but when I
looked where we had it, but a day or so later, it had burnt, consumed
itself and all that was left was the shape of the coal rocks but as
ashes, fine dust, and nothing else.

 

We enjoyed our train rides.We did this again later, another day, but
in the evening and Chris was with us as was Bracers friend. Looping
back and forth in the dark train, no headlight, no lights anywhere,
just a torch in the drivers cabin. Magic. To get above 22 miles an
hour involved a different combination of lever positions and Bracer
knew these but we didn’t. We stopped at the station again and then
Bracers Dad took us for an hours run, with his Mum and the other kids
so that was good too. We parked back at the station and Chris and I
peddled back into town, no lights and sat on her front verandah and
talked for a while. I didn’t tell Mum and Chris didn’t tell her Mum.
We said we would have if they asked, specifically what did we do
yesterday but nobody did. That’s not wrong, is it? 

 

These were great days, sort of day after day of new stuff, with a good
friend, or my work for which I got paid, and Chrissy would come over
after that and we stayed up until late then I walked her home. Mum
stopped that, it resulted in quite a ruckus, from her end, but it was
a school night often and there was no socialising much then and
certainly bed at 10 but Chris and I had after midnight episodes
sometimes, home work, then a piano recital, a demonstration of how a
big boy should play the piano, not how he did, a milo, a goodbye and a
peddle home in the dark, down the lanes, away from the black Mariah
who would seize your bike. Mum said no, and she rarely said no, so I
said yes to her no and told Chris and she was accepting. Chris and her
Mum were friends most times and there was not a lot of connection
between Chrissy and the young ones, not hatred or despisement, just a
non-interest from Chris. Mums motives were that we, Chrissy and me,
would move onto a physical relationship too young, it was patently
obvious to Mum, and while she wasn’t over protective of me, she might
have had more concern for Chris, Mum said that. Mum could see the
situation developing. We, Chris and me, had not planned anything, for
like a birthday, or the parent disappearing for a day and a night,
like mine did from time to time and I was alone in the big creaking
house, eating cheese for every meal. Mum could see a situation, lets
leave it at that. Saved, thanks Mum. That Mum intervention, that’s
what it was spoilt a plan for Chrissy and me, we both liked the river
and we had plans to go rafting on it, build a raft, a platform which
floated, maybe 44 gallon drums and a frame work, with a hut on top.
All contingencies were dealt with as there was to be a toilet hole in
the deck, undercover, and bedrolls in there, undercover, cooking on a
piece of steel with wood, branches from the river bank, water was not
a problem, food capacity might be, although somebody suggested fish.
Have you ever tasted fresh water river fish, I‘d rather starve,
although my stand point has never been tested. Yes so we would build
the frame, the drum bit, then put up a framework for the hut, with the
door facing forwards because that seemed to be where the door should
be, an area to walk around on, and not tip the thing over or be out of
balance, and to have a long oar steering point on the back end, a
spare oar, a transistor radio useless during the day, adora cream
wafers, a .22” rifle, 400 dollars, some board games, some rope, some
more rope. What happened was nothing. Hannas would help build the
frame and come with us for the first week, from up above Collarenebri
to home, then Chris and me for the remainder, others were invited but
school holidays in the city seemed more exciting than a stinking hot
raft on a stinking hot day. The drums were procured, from the dairy,
good condition diesel 44’s with their bungs screwed in, 15 of, as was
the flat steel for the framework for $10, the rusty remains of a one
time shed that never got carted off to the tip and Hannas started
measuring and planning. Chris did the plans, drew what she saw as
required, a hut about 5 feet high, with a rug over the floorboards,
minimal and just sufficient to hold the rug above the water otherwise
the deck was bare timber, with gaps between. There was a canvas tent
to go over the frame, a yellow one, yellow tinged really.

 

We asked the River Commission for some maps, why and we said, and they
said no, no rafts, certainly no rafts made from stinky diesel drums,
and we said we intended to return the drums to their owner and they
were in good condition. We got the maps, but did not get permission to
raft anywhere, yet. We had put in a good solid fortnight on procuring
and preliminary building and if there was something good to come out
of this it was that I bought a vehicle, to transport stuff to Hannas,
who had a shed where all this top secret boat building was going on.
The purchase and procurement of the ute will be dealt with soon, it
was a process of elimination.

 

I think you can guess that we didn’t go rafting, in the 4th week
mother got a whiff of what was going on, of the involvement of Chrissy
and me, and Hannas – his name really and this led to a discussion in
our kitchen, Chris sipping her tea, me my milo, and Mum asking what’s
going on and we told her. No. That was pretty much the end of my Huck
Finn planned adventures. I never read those books, we didn’t do them
at catholic school. Chris accepted that too and she went home and told
her mother what she had planned to do. Hannas did build the raft,
using goods he found himself, my steel, the drums got returned as we
said, and the vehicle ownership matter flared large and loud. My folks
saw it as a breach of trust in that I would purchase something without
confiding in them, without allowing them to be involved, and it might
be a bomb, a wreck and it might kill you, or hurt or maim you, or put
you in jail for using it, driving, and you might hurt somebody else,
you might kill them even, or hit a sheep or a cow or a dog and be
responsible. I kept the vehicle and Mum drove it mostly, it was a Ford
Pilot utility, a factory conversion from a sedan, with a v8 motor.

We used the ute and Hannas Dads trailer to get his raft to the river,
we went up the Cryon road a while to a property that had a boat
landing on a rock base into the river, although here we were on the
Pian Creek, a tributary and we back it in and it floated straight off
and Hannas tied it up. It was bouncy I guess, the buoyancy wasn’t
quite right, there was plenty of it but Hannas was going to put an
outrigger drum on either side just to buoy it a little more. The raft
had a leanto on it, a roof only affair, no walls, boards to walk on,
not all boarded and the obligatory toilet hole.

 

Hannas was going to pole the raft downstream to town and tie it up on
the other side, in a back creek which had water all the time. It took
him most of the day, there not being a lot of current in the creek but
when he hit the river the little craft zoomed along, well with the
current. The outrigger would be tied on there, tied and sparred. Chris
and I were waiting in the ute when he arrived. Next day, in the
afternoon after school we went back to the raft to find it tipped up.
It could not have got into that position by itself and it was thought
that some of the locals had found it while we were at school and not
being able to free it from its chain and padlock had set about to
destroy it. They did. We righted it, Hannas was affected, he was
nearly in tears. We freed it and commenced to pole it upstream, back
to the loading ramp, Hannas and me on the raft and Chris in the ute
using the fishing tracks on the other side. It took three days to move
it up there after school but we couldn’t do it every day, we had jobs,
the printery for me, then the wood yard on Saturday, milk deliveries
for Chrissy and the fruit and vege shop for Hannas, his parents
business. We did though, we got it there and out of the river and took
it back again to Hannas shed, where it sat for many years, outside
getting rusty. Chris and I talked a bit about that, that trip that
wasn’t. We didn’t go opal hunting, we didn’t go on the train trip to
Sydney and come back on the plane, we didn’t go down to the marshes to
go bird counting, we didn’t go to the rock concert in Moree, another
train trip missed. We didn’t go on the footy trips to the three towns,
the bus out and back and lodging with families there, I went but
Chrissy didn’t, she was going to run the water and help with the team
uniform despatching but somebodys nephew got that job, got pissed and
did nothing. We didn’t go camping and shooting overnight, her with her
new camera and the flash bulb that stuck up on top. We didn’t walk and
camp the creeks, the five creeks that surround the town and you walk
in the beds of them and climb up the banks every so often to find your
self in somebodys paddock or at the back of somebodys old house and
all the while you are below the level of the plain surrounding you for
miles and miles. Like trenches in warfare was her first words when she
saw and tried them. We did drive the ute, Chrissy did a lot of that,
out to the common, a paddock south of town, then on the track there,
and the track got better, softer, with our tyres making the dust. Then
we parked it at Hannas, as agreed and walked to her place and I went
home. We kissed of course, we fooled around a little but not a lot.
Chris said we never went anywhere much were we would be alone, you and
me, nothing overnight, you know, she said. I knew, and we never did.
The assertion of the Nun, the decreed you are a girl, babies are in
your life as a result, Chris talked about that sometimes. You know she
said, I’m not sure now if I want a husband, I don’t , no, and I don’t
want kids, I can have kids without a husband, I can have different
fathers, Geez wouldn’t that cause a stir. What a tramp. But no, no
husband, no father, but you. I said, you only like me because I’m
here. Spot on, and then we got interrupted by the dog and a creek rat,
and didn’t get back to it.

 

Chris had a dog, Mouse, and he refused to leave home. It’s a given
that her and me were always out and about, miles out some days and she
had taught him, showed him, invited him to ride on her bike in the
yard at her place, his front paws on the handlebars and his backside
and back legs on her lap. He enjoyed that, he ran beside her then
jumped up to be carried when invited. If you put him up there then
left the yard he jumped off again, and trotted back through the gate,
had a drink at the leaking rainwater tank and sat on the rear veranda
near the laundry, avoiding eye contact with you. He slept on her bed,
he got between her and me on the lounge, sat there, wiggled in until
he was wedged then looked at me, expecting a pat which he got in
copious applications. He ate their food, meaning what was cooked for
them he ate, so it was a serving for him, and one for evey one else.
He sat across the door way when she played the piano, strictly I was
practice, regimented tasks leading to improvement. Where he lay, or
sat, you had to step over him to enter or leave, but he was a piano
loving dog, no doubt about it.

 

Chris played the piano on the stage in the auditorium at school, it
was a good one, not the grand style at home, but the mechanic for the
school piano did hers as well. He travelled all day to get to our town
and he worked on the school instrument in the afternoon, single tink,
tink, tink-tink for each key while he slackened then tightened the
mechanism. He had a device, an oscilloscope that heard the key sound
and showed if it was involved in the present tuning. The tuning of one
was different to the other, Chris piano was set for single room, a
gentler tuning, and the school piano was set for the auditorium. Hers
was a Knabe, a full size, the piano at school was a baby, a Steinway
no less, apparently they are good, she said. I could tell the
difference between the two. Most days until 4.00pm she played the
school instrument, did the concerts, the assemblies, the anthem, and
strangely she was approachable then, joking, saying listen to this,
whats that Animals record. At home, well it was better to be elsewhere
for those couple of hours, you could listen and watch, you could move
between brackets, otherwise no to talking, moving, coughing, any body
function involving the emission of gas, which includes breathing out
it seems, or yawning. No. Stay away and come back after tea, or after
5.00pm and stay for tea.

 

Chris went down to the courts sometimes to practice her baskets, she
was the goalie most times and I went there to catch and return the
ball. I went there really to be in the company, the hearing, the
sight, the sound of my friend. Some older boys made a situation
unbearable, their sex salted talk just too much and Chris went to
leave. One boy snatched the ball from her and I snatched it back. I
think he realised I was stronger, taller, more protective than he
thought and he moved off. His friend was in my training team at footy
and he said sorry to Chris and nodded to me. The other boy was sullen
and said nothing, did nothing, except he threw a brick that landed
nowhere near us, but it shattered on the road. Chris asked me to keep
riding on, away, but no, I saw him throw it and he can’t, shouldn’t do
that. He was in the process of leaving and made a great show of not
being implicated, not admitting to throwing but I saw him, Chris did
too. It came down to name calling by him of us and when I got close he
backed off and away, saying what, what, so away he went, muttering but
what he did was unsettling, not necessary, he was jealous it seemed
almost, upset that two kids could be in company with each other and
his role was to make trouble. It affected me, can’t you tell. I rode
back to Chris and she was crying, sobbing. I don’t like fights, there
was none, I don’t like confrontation, there was some, there was three
of them and there was you, and no matter how I said it it didn’t seem
to matter. So I held her as we walked home, the long way, pushing the
bikes, her leaning on me in the dark. She got better, she did, she was
good by the time we got home but she was frightened, frightened of
that which had happened. She was upset at what had been said by the
sullen one, it was not nice, not true, and concerned sexual relations
between us, Chrissy and me. As I said, jealous, incapable of having a
relationship, doesn’t know how to behave, doesn’t know right from
wrong, has never been shown, never been lead in the right direction.
Yeah, it affected me for a while.

 

I left the catholic junior high school early in the year that she left
to go to her Dad to go to the music college there. 

 

Roller skating became big and I never did it, never tried it, pleased
I didn’t because Sellsy broke his arm, but strangely almost every
other kid in town was on skates after school, except us, Chris and her
sisters and me. There was no TV, it did come eventually, snowy furtive
images and a man talking about Australia and wishing he was English.
On Saturday I went to golf with Mum and Dad often, Christine had music
in the morning and recital in the afternoon, when a few students did
do that as well. Music was important to her, she could read and write
it, play it and liked it, another language which she spoke fluently.
In the evening we met if we could or I worked and we spoke on the
phone as I said.

 

The group broke up, some what dramatically, and I was away when that
happened. Hannas girlfriend got friendly with Sellsy, and then Sellsy
girlfriend took up with somebody else, an older boy, like 6 years
older or so. Hannas got annoyed about all of this, he had been the Mr
Fixit for all of us for such a long time, punctures, welding, use of
motorcycle of which he had three, records, cards, books, magazines,
those sorts of magazines, homework. Sellsy was a good footy player,
really good in the centres, one of three from school, I was too,
playing in the town team, easybeat at tennis, and a swimmer superb. He
did fall out of love easily though, he had two girls to my none, and
this episode saw him solo for only a short while. Sellsy left and
stayed away, we saw him  in town often but he didn’t talk much, well
he talked to me and he asked about the others but he didn’t talk to
them is what I meant. The friendly girlfriend moved on and while this
is not the logical mid point in her involvement she fell pregnant to
one of the guys working on the golf course, building it. There was no
embarrassment, she had the child and kept it and reared it. Strange
words aren’t they, but the generalisation back then was the opposite
of all of that, secrecy, a quiet pregnancy and birth, the baby given
over for adoption, and the girl returning to her hometown, with her
reputation intact. Sad, and better that our society have grown up and
away from that. I mean she wasn’t raped she said, he is a lovely man
with soft eyes, and it wasn’t as if she was a virgin, and that really
summed up how we spoke, her and me. Mum was amused to come home one
afternoon to find me and her drinking tea, tea, on the benches around
the cypress pine in the back yard with the baby with her, and she,
Mum, ignored me, and her, and talked to the baby and then had to have
a hold and a cuddle, all the while in possession of a custard roll,
with cream in the fridge, cross purposes there somewhere, don’t you
think. I was on holidays from school then. But we spoke more, that
girl and me, and she took up with the father which was good, that it
didn’t last was more a result of their age, hers in particular. The
baby came home to granny and the girl moved on and away. A Mum, a
single Mum and then single at 18 years, a little older than me.

 

After Chrissy left town to go to her Dad and a proper school, I left
the Nuns secondary school to go to high school, I was a bad student by
any test except I had brains and no connection with catholic religion
based teachings, at all. I was a cynic I thought, a smarty said some,
I was too big for my boots to use the correct cliché, Dad saw this and
I was moved. Thank God, which is so against everything I didn’t
believe in.

 

I came second in my first, shortened year, at that new school and I
became friends with the boy who beat me, a natural brain, so easy for
him. He did crosswords at lunchtime and raced the teachers at that.
Well, I was impressed. He had been in the band also, this was now
defunct, if it was ever functioning, but there was fun in music, in
rhythms and beats, syncopated noise was interesting and he had a drum
kit, actually he had the works, amplifier, equaliser, guitars, bass,
electric, and two really good guitars, well made. He could read music,
he could talk languages, he was good at jigsaws, he was good at
crosswords and he knew things, he knew history, Australian history. Us
students had a version of the war that was permitted to be taught, not
him, he researched and read, researched and asked, and he got the
background, he got all the answers. Then he kept this information to
himself. He told you what he knew if you asked, just the facts
appertaining to the question, and no more.

 

That last year at the convent school high school I struck up a
friendship with D, the oldest girl of several children, 13 in all,
boys and girls. She was going away to school next year and I was
progressing onto the new high school for a year. D was great, a touchy
feely type, my type and there is plenty written about her already, her
and me. But before all of this she spoke, complained, of having to do
the shopping, some of it, for her family, just her and not the built
in army of sibling helpers she had. I was between jobs then, between
brushing and bagging spuds at Johnsuns and working at the printing
works, my afternoons were taken up normally but this day I said,
magnamously, stop at my house and I’ll go shopping with you. She did,
knocked on the door and waited, but not for long, I was hoping she
would and she did, and off we strolled, I lived in the Main Street
anyway. D kept strictly to the list, there was no money exchange all
booked up and in 20 minutes she was done, an impossible amount to
carrying on her own and she says, well I do, all this and more
sometimes, two trips, one to the bakery, go back and get the rest,
take that straight home, go back to the bakery and collect what she
left and go home. No so much the weight but the volume, not helped
because there were 4 loaves of bread as well, hence the bakery depot.

 

But that is a different story, may be next time

 

Cheers

 

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 



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