With each draft of my memoir I knew I had to be brutal and condense it. The book was going to be much too long. Each time I discarded a vignette it was like losing a child, a part of me, part of my treasured life. However it recently occurred to me that I could put them up here. This first one is about the rawness and self consciousness of youth. Set in the fifties.
Heat waves are not uncommon through South Australian summers. Today we take shelter in our air-conditioned homes, restaurants, shops, theatres and our workplaces, but in the fifties there was no air-conditioning. Even fans were rare. Kids would play under sprinklers in their back yards. Sometimes we’d go to the pool, but for us this was a luxury to be paid for out of our pocket money. Also cycling the three kilometers into town and back in the extreme heat would often be deemed too taxing.
On one of these South Australian summer days Mum took us to visit one of her friends. Perhaps it was a birthday party. There were other visitors. A bunch of high-pitched girls played happily in the hot, bright yard. My sister and I joined in.
‘Let’s play under the sprinkler,’ suggested one of the girls.
The mothers were happy with that but none of us had brought our bathers.
‘Strip off to your undies,’ said the mums.
I was twelve, and among us a girl of thirteen – the eldest there. The thought of taking my clothes off had me feeling uncomfortable. I dallied. I wouldn’t have given it a second thought the year before. The older girl too was disinclined. But it was so hot. The sounds of gaiety and sight of glistening water on the younger bodies was finally too tantalizing, and so with a consensual look between us, we two conceded to drop our dresses onto the careless heap. All chests were flat except hers. She bore the beginnings of adolescence in the soft pink swelling of her breasts and I was acutely interested knowing this would soon be happening to me. It came soon enough, and along with a development of breasts came a fervid interest in clothes, hairspray, make-up, hit parades and boys. It was time for my brother, now six, to keep my dad company in his shed, instead of me.
January nineteen fifty nine. My secondary education was about to begin. Mum had taken me into the local drapery and clothing store to buy the required high school uniform. A feeling of separation from my sister had me watching her face for the same awareness. Till now we’d dressed alike. Mum had always sewn our clothes – dresses that made us feel like princesses. Now here I was being fitted for a brown wool tunic, white shirt, lisle stockings with suspender belt, and strangest of all a little white bra. With raised eyebrows Erica and I shot each other a glance. Next day I put on the bra and for several days afterwards felt enormously self-conscious about this new part of me that kept catching my attention. Not embarrassed though – perhaps even a little chuffed at the new shape at the front of me.
In the May school holidays of that year I went to stay with Paula who’d been a best buddy in Primary school but had moved with her family to Yorketown on the Yorke Peninsula. Mum took me to Adelaide on the day I was to leave and bought me a coat I could only ever have dreamed of. Shell pink wool and mohair, bell-shaped with a large collar and three enormous buttons. The absolute latest in fifties fashion.
Later that day, excited and a little fearful, I boarded the bus to Yorketown as Adelaide welcomed the night with her lights. The trip seemed to take forever with numerous stops along the way. It was ten pm before I arrived and to my relief Paula and her Mum were waiting for me at the station as planned. I thought this took some courage as a thirteen year old but I recently heard of a boy who ran away from home at the same age, and hitch-hiked from the east to the west of Australia and got a job when he arrived. Now that took guts.
Although Paula’s house was small and she had two brothers and a new baby sister, there was a bed made up for me in my friend’s room and on that first night we talked and laughed into the wee hours. Paula was an attractive girl – black hair, beautiful dark eyes and a delightful sense of the ridiculous that I loved. She was a girl of great character. I think I have always gravitated towards people with this quality.
Despite it being winter we spent little time inside over the next week. Walking around town, we visited the girlfriends that Paula had made soon after she’d arrived there. Together we applied and re-applied lipstick, nail-polish, tried on clothes and shoved handkerchiefs into our bras before going out to see what boys might be about. In particular Paula was hoping to come across her boyfriend Michael. One day we did bump into him. She sparkled with confidence. He was a little shy. We continued to walk – the three of us – no particular direction. Just wandering, aimlessly I thought, but eventually we reached the outskirts of town. After climbing over a barbed wire fence, we found ourselves in native bushland. Soon I realised I was walking alone and turned to see Paula and Michael kissing. How utterly romantic I thought as a soundtrack to an on-the-spot made-up musical drifted through my head. Tactfully I kept walking, feigning interest in the flora and birdlife, until a couple of minutes later I was called to rejoin them as we set out to return to town. I think this was their preordained kissing place.
Robert Kirsch, son of a local farmer, was the boy Paula thought worthy of my attention during this holiday. I was pleased with her choice. Handsome as Rock Hudson, strong and beguiling as Gary Cooper, he rode a tall grey horse while lesser beings of the same gender rode push-bikes.
On Saturday nights Paula went to the pictures. She told me that sometimes Robert sat with her and Michael. On the Saturday I was there, we spent all afternoon getting ready. I’d bought a pale pink lipstick and nail polish to go with my beautiful coat. We teased our hair like mad women and sprayed it into obedience. Robert did go to the pictures that night but didn’t sit with us. It might have been the hair! Paula told me just recently that in her entire life, she has never been more passionately in love as she was with Robert Kirsch – even on that night. Girlfriend love and sacrifice.
Now in our seventies, we two often reminisce and laugh about those tender years together – both on the Peninsula and in the Barossa. Paula should have been in my ‘Old Friends’ series. However, here she is now – forever an important thread in the fabric of my life.
I am delighted to tell you I will soon be heading back out into my beloved Outback. My brother and his partner have invited me on a road trip – up through The Centre, Mt.Isa and then across to Airlie Beach, up to Cairns and finally Cooktown. Then home via a different route through Central Queensland and Outback South Australia. I so appreciate having been invited. It was the next big trip Warren and I had planned. I’m hoping and believing that the landscape I love will distract me from the pain of being alone now.
Will have some Outback stories to tell in my next blog – as long as our borders remain open. Fingers crossed.
Cheers for now,
Sue