Sawdust (7 page)

It was here in our new home, too, that one day my dog Widget went missing.

I remember the day so clearly; everyone was looking for her and couldn’t find her. It ended up that for two whole weeks we looked. We even asked neighbours and the locals to keep an eye out for our little watchdog. But it seemed no one had seen or heard her. Finally it was Jim who found her – on the roadside.

Puffing, his face white just like I imagined Jack Frost, he came up to me and like a real, mature man, said: ‘Deb, you don’t want to see this. I’ve found Widget. But it don’t look good.’

His staring eyes and manly stance told the story. Widget was found with a big gaping hole in her side and there were maggots crawling out of her. Dad said it looked like she had bled to death.

I was devastated. Life was full of cruel blows. It upset me how easily life could be turned upside down. The cause of her death appeared to be connected to a large petrol tank we had on the property. It was known that some misfits in the area would come around at times and try to steal the fuel. On this particular occasion, it seems, Widget had caught them red-handed, made a noise to ward them off, and got a bullet in her side for her troubles.

Mum was around then, but I don’t remember feeling a great deal from her... there was no hugging or words of comfort. But that’s not to say she wasn’t upset, because she was, so was Dad. We all were.

Perhaps they were all affected in their own way by their own grief? They just didn’t show it like we kids did. Then again, that was life on a farm. Mum saw another emptiness, a gap around the place, and Dad thought if only he could catch those bloody mongrels... Yes, if only he could. If he had, they would have felt one of his bullets in their butts for sure. But the incident reminded me of a story much worse than mine. It was the story Dad told us around the same time, about his pet kangaroo.

When Dad was a boy growing up he had this pet kangaroo that he loved and which followed him everywhere around the paddock. It was at the time when he was still very young and staying with his real mum, Grandma Glad and his step-father, Uncle Harvey.

It was a time of massive rainfall and flash flooding and Dad was frantic about where Joey, his pet kangaroo had got to. The kangaroo was nowhere to be seen. Sometime during one of those days, it was Uncle Harvey, a man Dad mostly looked up to, who with a smile told Dad to go down to the back of the paddock – because Joey was around there -- “hanging out against the black stump”.

Relieved and excited, Dad raced through the muddy paddock to the black stump. As expected, Dad found Joey there, only his pet kangaroo was lying up against the stump with its stomach cut and hanging out. Its underbelly was like a neon pink jellyfish, its insides half-eaten out by dogs.

Without having to tell us, from the red in his eyes, we could see how Dad must have cried and wondered about the random punishments the world dished out. In the background, Uncle Harvey was laughing, telling him he was
such a boofhead
. I knew from my own experience how it felt.

Yes, there was always something to tarnish the good times.

To be honest, if I wasn’t exactly happy, I can’t say I was exactly unhappy. What I was getting now on the new property as Dad built the house, was a lot of attention. And not just from Dad or from his mates when they came around to play their musical instruments and sing and make merry.

I was getting extra special attention from Cec Parsons. Cec was always around on the nights of the merrymaking but he would also be around at other times too.

A fisherman by trade, like Dad, he was also in the timber industry, and would help Dad with the felled trees. He also did the ringbarking, which was a way of poisoning those that needed to be culled to let new growth come on. Because of this work, sometimes he would stay overnight at our house.

Somehow, and I can’t recall why or even how, everyone would manage to traipse off to bed, and I would be left out there, in the woody living room with handsome Cec, the man with dark, mesmerising eyes, a subtle smile, and a voice fit for a stage.

What I especially liked about him was that he was a much softer and gentler man than Dad. He would call me over to him in a smooth and kind voice, his dark brow almost begging, and then when I was comfortable he would do what Dad used to do, only much more gently.

Sitting or even kneeling, he would take down my knickers and rub himself on me. On occasion, he would be lying on the daybed in the lounge where he would sleep of a night, and he’d call me to come over and stand by him.

Out would come that extra tense and it would seem unmanageable part of his anatomy, and, just like Dad, while I stood there, he would rub himself against my vaginal region, in the clitoral area, like he knew exactly where the right spot was. I would stand there, a little girl who should be in bed fast asleep, feeling tingly and soft like velvet.

Sometimes, and again don’t ask me how this was possible, when I was sent to bed early he would later come into the bedroom, which we kids all shared, and he would climb into my bed. He would lie close to me and rub himself against me. It was fleshy and comforting and so intimate, in some ways almost sacred. I would feel needed, a child in a church choir looking up at angels.

It was good to be noticed by Cec Parsons. It made me feel different to the others. It made me feel like a wanted human being. And yet I can’t say I remember there ever being a single conversation between him and me, not even any of that “adult to sweet little kid” talk between us. Strange, but I can’t even remember him asking me how I was or even how school was.

But he was handsome and charming and gentler than Dad, and that was enough. He never felt like he was hurting me or forcing himself on me. I was a little girl, and in my eyes, seeing how well he sang and played his stick of bottle tops, and how friendly he was with Dad, the unbreakable pole that was at the centre of our house, it was hard not to feel special.

Unlike Dad, he never said things like:
“
You! Get yourself over here!
”
No, he never ever talked like that, never got all cranky when I wanted to do other things. He only ever called me in that wet and generous voice that sounded like an archangel.

Late one night, after Cec Parsons had been with me, Mum and Dad appeared in the bedroom and hauled me out of bed. I could tell Dad was acting at the behest of Mum, because she was standing behind him like an overfed ship commander, raging and ordering: ‘Get her on the kitchen table, dammit, and let’s have a look. Then we’ll see what’s going on here.’ And Dad, strangely, like a gawky cadet sailor unsure how to proceed, was obeying her.

Half asleep, I was led through the darkness of the house into the kitchen. There, in the complete black of night, I was lifted onto the kitchen table and told to lie on my back. The ceiling felt so close to my head and everything around me was so dark and threatening that my head felt like a flock of migrating birds lost in a jungle of squalling clouds.

Above me, Dad’s menacing bird-eyes were looking grey and frozen while Mum’s dark eyes blazed so intently and seriously I thought they were going to jump out of her head and beat me. It was like her eyes were a surgeon’s knife cutting through my skin.

And in the end, like surgeons, it was like the two of them, Mum and Dad, knew exactly what they were doing and where they were going with it. Only to me as a person, as a little girl alone on a dark wooden kitchen table, their eyes didn’t speak. They just barked orders and sliced. My body was writhing with the heat of small yet hugely painful incisions.

As I lay there like that, confused, self-conscious and embarrassed beyond belief, Mum was only about to make it worse. She ordered me to take my flannelette pyjama pants off. When I had done that, one of them, I think it was Mum this time, pulled down my knickers.

She growled to Dad to fetch a torch, and I completely believed, even without my pants on, they were going to examine my eyes. The birds in my head were whorling like a big and dusty whirly-whirly and I could not help but wonder if this was some new ritual Dad had not shown me that kings and queens performed.

Finally, a yellow light shone into my face. Behind it stood Dad. They both gathered at my side and Mum stood there, the short and plump commander, the Lord Admiral, giving orders. She was looking into my eyes but yelling something completely unfathomable.

‘Open your legs, Debbie!’

‘No, no. Why?’ I was sleepy and befuddled.

‘Just do it. Open them!
Now
!
’

Looking up into Dad’s eyes, I saw stone. Looking up into Mum’s eyes I saw desperation – that urgent, sharp-gashing surgeon’s blade. Neither of them were giving an inch. I opened my legs.

All I remember was it was cold, and I sort of peered back with my head into the darkness behind me as they shone the torch between my legs.

In another world, in another era, it could have looked like a witches coven or like a Medieval torture chamber; in this world it was a torch held by two adult people, called parents, searching between my little girl legs for I did not know what. It was an investigation, a close and brutal interrogation. I was their prisoner and I held all their enemy’s secret truths.

Staring intently down there, the torch waving just slightly, Mum was the first to put her verdict on it.

‘It’s red,’ she said. ‘You can see it. He’s been touching her.’

Dad beckoned down with his eyes but stopped at the top of Mum’s head, like he was avoiding her. In a sense, without saying a word, I could see by the way he fidgeted and looked about Mum, that what Mum had said was his verdict too. He was just not prepared to openly say a word about it.

For me, the word “touching” was my clue. I knew from experience what Mum was on about. Only I couldn’t tell her, I couldn’t say anything. And quietly I knew it wasn’t just Cec, it was Dad. It was Dad, too.

Eventually, it sounded like eventually because Dad was silent for a long time, but finally he breathed: ‘I’ll have a word with him, Julie. He had better not be doing anything like this. Else he won’t be allowed back again. I’ll make sure he knows.’

After that I was allowed to go back to bed. There was no
goodnight
. No
can we help you in any way?
No
my poor darling, we need to talk about this
.
I was simply ordered back to my room. There was no word of sorrow, or explanation.

That night I peed myself. That is to say I peed my bed.
It was something I had started to do, pee my pants, whenever anyone put too much pressure on me. Whenever I felt locked into a corner. It happened too whenever Dad was going to give me a belting, or did give me a belting, or shouted at me. It also happened when Mum was about to attack me, verbally or physically, or did attack me, I did that thing. I peed myself as if I had no control over my own bladder. I remember having lots of urinary infections; but a kidney X-ray didn’t show up anything. Something else pushed to the background; something that would last into mid teenagehood.

Leaving my wet bed behind and out early into the dry cold of the paddock the next day after the events of the night before, I heard a train tooting its head of steam and I wondered what the day was going to bring. I could not help it. I was expecting some kind of thrashing from Dad. For, I don’t know, being “caught”?

But seeing me, Dad, in a very friendly manner, like everything in the world was exactly as it should be, like the night before hadn’t happened, took me aside and took me into his confidence.

Around us the magpies were yelling through the dry autumn air, and with firm bird-eyes bearing down on me, he told me not to tell anyone about what Cec had done to me. He was very strong about it, and trilling resolutely like one of the birds he repeated what he said
.
In fact, this time adding:
‘
And do not tell anyone about anyone
. Least of all Mum.’

His hazel eyes really softened now, beginning to explain, to mentor, to lecture me with almost chirpy retinae: ‘This is what men do, Deb. There’s no need to worry, it’s just the men having a bit of fun, hey. Nothin, absolutely nothin wrong in it. Cec’s a good man.’

Dad, my guide, my teacher, was so tall his head sometimes looked like the sun. Like the hot sun, he stood at the centre of the earth and he knew what he was talking about. He knew much, much more than Mum, who slapped me for the truth, who had me on a table with a torch shining up my privates with my legs drawn up and wide open like an upside down beetle. As Dad said, she should never know because the truth was she would never “get it”.

What I do remember very well about that time, young as I was, is feeling completely isolated on the property. Even when I eventually started primary school at age six I felt isolated.

We siblings had one another, but we were ninety percent of the time not allowed to have friends over or allowed to visit friends. Other people, we were told, were bad; we should never trust them. Mum and Dad warned us constantly. They were concerned, they said, they were doing it for our own sakes. For our safety.

Which is probably why I never told Mum – or Dad – about Uncle Barney and what happened on the way back from Mum’s younger sister, Aunty Lorraine’s twenty-first birthday party in Gladstone.

I was about six years old and it was very late at night. All us kids were told to lie in the back of the ute and go to sleep until we got home. With us in the back of the ute was Uncle Barney, Mum’s older brother. The ute was Cec Parsons’, and he and Mum and Dad were huddled in the front cabin, with Mum doing the driving. The back of the ute had a high frame that was covered with a tarpaulin. On the floor of the ute was Cec’s thick fishing nets which made everything feel comfy and warm.

Bumping happily along in sleep, I was awoken by something pressing on my lips. I opened my eyes and had to blink. I blinked again. It took a while of blinking but eventually I realised what was going on. I may have only been six but I was no idiot. I had already seen a good couple of things.

So I knew after a while what it was. It was Uncle Barney forcing his stiff penis into my sleeping mouth. He was holding the back of my head and pushing me onto him. I don’t know what it was, but maybe confused with sleep something jarred in me. Everything stood still. It was like there was a concrete post in the middle of me and I remember biting my teeth so hard together it felt like they were going to crack.

Persistent, Uncle Barney kept pressing himself on me. Beneath me, the car was wobbling and the road felt like small stones jumping into my ears and head. Around me, I became aware of the awful smell of dead fish. A piece of large cork on the net beneath me bit uncomfortably into my side. Inside my head, clouds were gathering. It felt familiar and yet unfamiliar, everything so dark, frightening, cold, just like that night on the kitchen table with Mum and Dad examining me. Birds were swirling in a cloud behind my eyes.

I didn’t know exactly what was going on. No one had ever done this to me before. There was a taste of humidity and salt on the tip of my tongue. I continued to clench my teeth as hard as I could. And Uncle Barney continued to press as hard as he could. The taste of salt grew in my mouth.

‘It’s good for you, Debbie. You must eat lots and lots of salt if you want to grow big and strong like me.’ Dad’s mentoring voice groaned inside me. But it wasn’t that kind of salt. It was what men do kind of salt. Only this wasn’t what any man had done before. Caught up in the fishing nets, it felt dirty. And yet maybe it was all right? And yet maybe it was normal? What men did? My tongue pressed against my teeth and tasted it. The salt. It slid into my mouth. I felt like I was going to be sick.

‘Deb, Deb, are you all right? Is everything okay back there?’ The ute ground to a halt and Mum’s voice was calling from the front like a siren. It was like her voice intuited an emergency.

There was silence. She called again.

Eventually someone – it must’ve been my older brother Jim – called back that everything was okay, and at last Uncle Barney withdrew.

The ute continued on. Uncle Barney turned away from me.

That taste in my mouth. That thing on my tongue. There was a lot happening in those days, but that was the thing that didn’t sit right. I didn’t tell anyone about it. Like Dad said I shouldn’t.
Don’t tell anyone about anyone, Deb. No one will understand anyway.

And Mum...? I don’t know how, but it was like she had sensed something. But if I told her she would only tell me not to ever mention these things again. She would slap my face. Put a yellow torch in me. Only this time it would be down my throat.

In the end, I didn’t have anyone to tell. But the feeling of something being wrong only grew worse.

And was made worse, quite a long time after, when Dad began kissing me. Yes, Dad began kissing me like an adult. Real French kisses that made me feel sick and yet at the same time tingly and loved.

There was something in the closeness of it, its exoticness, which once again told me Dad had chosen me above anyone else. I was being singled out for sure. Dad had taught me another lesson in how to be a person and how, maturely, to show affection for others.

In fact, I learnt the lesson so well that one day at a birthday party for our next door neighbour, Mr Grove, I would do just that – show I knew how to give affection like an adult.

Mr and Mrs Grove were the only ones whose children were sometimes allowed to come over to our place, and so when Mr Grove came up to me for his happy birthday kiss, I slipped my tongue into his mouth.

I’ll never forget how the very staid, very steady, very genteel man reeled back. His head, half bald, looked like grey ice. He glared at me, his usually ruddy cheeks whiter than a flicker of light. He looked afraid, even more afraid than I was.

Taking a deep, considered breath, and then another, his chubby cheeks bloating and narrowing, finally he seemed to collect himself. Like they were searching for a familiar pathway, his eyes gazed deeply into mine. I could see he was lost.

In response, my eyes blinked back into his. But painfully. I felt my tongue sucking into my cheeks, and as best I could, if that were at all possible, I tried to hide my shameful eyes behind my big bushes of curly brown hair.

Finally, tongue twisting for words, he told me that what I had done was absolutely not appropriate. Not for a little girl barely eleven years old! Not for anyone.

I looked back into his eyes, saw the earnestness in them, the uncanny gravity of concern, and I suppose I should have been alerted then. I should have. But all I can remember is feeling ashamed. So very, very deeply ashamed.

In the end, he also didn’t understand. Like Mum, he was one of those who didn’t realise what happened in the real world. The world of men.

And yet there was something in that kiss with Mr Grove, something in that sick, overt reaction that told me something was amiss. And it was useful knowing what I did, because one day with that knowing I saved my sister Marge.

I was walking into our bedroom and saw Dad already in there. He was standing there with my sister, leaning over her like a big dark shadow, and I could tell it was like she did not understand. She was backed up into a corner of the room, wanting to get out of there. I could sense in the stiffness of her straight dark hair, she was dead afraid of the advancing bird in front of her.

She was unwilling. I could tell that a mile away.
She needed protection, she needed a shield, so I went up to Dad, took him by the hand, and started kissing him, kissing him in that way I had tried to kiss Mr Grove. Like a lover, I smooched him and led him to the other side of the bedroom. And like a big puppy he followed me, and my sister slipped away.

A gallant soldier, with my knowledge I had stood up in the line of battle and shielded her path from my black world of love and affection and the ways of men.

To this day Marge doesn’t like to remember that incident, not anything like that with Dad. For her it didn’t happen. And maybe to this day that is why the most important part of my body is my lips. Never mind what they say about protecting your privates, it is in the lips where the lies and deceit can be seen and felt. Even if I don’t see it, I will feel it through the lips when people are being dishonest. Nowadays, I do not readily accept lips – or anything else – on mine... And when I do, I devour them.

Maybe it is also why I can tell when someone has been abused. I just have to look at them and I can see it not only in the eyes and cheekbones but on their lips. Did I have a face like that? Men seemed to think so. They seemed to recognise it in me. Men have a way of knowing these things.

But with Aunty Bev and Uncle Max it was different... without people like them I would never have survived.