Punishment
I think there must have been an element of guilt at play, and dad decided it was best if he tried to handle this situation himself. My father was not hands-on. In fact, I don't know why he ever had children, because at the first sign of guts and blood, anger, jealousy, or discontent, he would actually leave the house. He only liked children who weren't there. I wonder if this had anything to do with his sudden end of childhood at the mighty zip of Tom the butcher.
On this day, he and Robert, laughing (despite the congealing web of sick on their jeans and shoes), hoiked my by my arm out the back of the shed, and left me on the grass to 'sober up.' There were a few of Robert's more dodgy mates dropping acid and smoking weed (they weren't spliffs in those days) out here, and I landed fair amongst them. Not that they noticed, or cared. I puked a few whispery spits onto the lawn, and promptly fell asleep.
For the first time I experienced genuine memory lapse. This odd sensation would become a normal part of my life between 18 and 25, but at 8 it was a curious thing, to fall asleep on grass in the afternoon, and wake up at night (remembering it was summer, so no-one missed me for several hours), to Aunty Pauline pulling my arm. By now, given a few more hurls had happened since I lost consciousness, I was a car crash. My very long hair was stuck together with bits of food, my orange dress was iron brown, my mouth tasted burnt and dry. Aunty Pauline was well pissed, and, not knowing how to handle this, went and fetched my mother.
She went berserk. She shouted, she screamed, she smacked my bum, she slapped my face, she smacked my bum again, and she yelled over and over, 'How COULD you!? How COULD you?!! You dirty little BITCH!!' At that moment I saw my future, although I didn't know it then. When I came home dishevelled from the pub at 16 and claimed I was raped by a boy I knew, my mother shut me in my room and went on and on about the short pink dress I was wearing. She refused to take me to the police, or the hospital, because it 'was all my fault.' Here, at 8, she assumed I had set this situation up, and willing made myself drunk in order to...what? Embarrass her? Humiliate the family? How could a family like the Russells be further humiliated than they already were? Was she in denial? Years of therapy have passed, and all I feel for my mother is sadness. How sad she was to define her life so pointlessly on reputation and 'what other people think.' If only she had allowed us some failures, and herself some imperfections, then we could have perhaps bonded. Instead, we fractured, and when she stood up at my dad's funeral, to cry for a man she had left for another, I wanted to protest she was not part of those mourning, she had no place there, this was just more posturing for the sake of a family 'reputation' she clearly had no idea had never existed in the first place.
All of us were poured into the Toyota, which resembled more a butter box than a dim sim. Dad drove us home, stopping once to throw up his own party-sausage-roll-alcohol-mess. This disgusted my mother, who shouted and roared, unaware she was herself a violent and rather pathetic drunk. Having driven most of the way home, the distance from Pennington to Valley View being about 25 minutes, we were outside the Yatala prison when I said I felt sick. 'Mum, I think I'm going to be sick,' I said. She turned on me, alcohol fuelling her rage, 'Don't you DARE be sick YOUNG LADY! How DARE you? If you are sick I will make you clean the car when we get home!' Now, movement, espcially in a car with little windows and not enough air, will always make the inebriated feel much, much worse. Clearly, my father had suffered this sensation already. Now it was my turn. Mum was nuts thinking she could hold back the bile by bullying. At the top of the hill, I lost control of my stomach, adding noxious fumes and messy fluids to the already suffering little car. To say my mother went balastic would be understating it. She turned her shoulders as completely as she could, and begin to smack whatever parts of me she could reach; my head, my thigh, my arm, my shins. I cringed into the corner, but could not escape her probing arm, as she switched sides to reach me more effectively.
Five minutes later we were home. It now being very late, I wished for a nice bath and my bed. I was bruised, smelled like an old man's hostel, and was very, very tired. No such luck. Mum, putting the angelic and sleeping Wendy to bed, came out with a bucket of soapy water and a rag. 'Clean the car,' she spat, and I did. I was sick twice more, just because looking at sick makes you feel sick, but luckily reached the garden. Somewhere in my head I wondered if mum would make me clean that, too.
And dendrites were forming a pattern inside my hypothalamus - dad, wherever he was, wasn't helping.
On this day, he and Robert, laughing (despite the congealing web of sick on their jeans and shoes), hoiked my by my arm out the back of the shed, and left me on the grass to 'sober up.' There were a few of Robert's more dodgy mates dropping acid and smoking weed (they weren't spliffs in those days) out here, and I landed fair amongst them. Not that they noticed, or cared. I puked a few whispery spits onto the lawn, and promptly fell asleep.
For the first time I experienced genuine memory lapse. This odd sensation would become a normal part of my life between 18 and 25, but at 8 it was a curious thing, to fall asleep on grass in the afternoon, and wake up at night (remembering it was summer, so no-one missed me for several hours), to Aunty Pauline pulling my arm. By now, given a few more hurls had happened since I lost consciousness, I was a car crash. My very long hair was stuck together with bits of food, my orange dress was iron brown, my mouth tasted burnt and dry. Aunty Pauline was well pissed, and, not knowing how to handle this, went and fetched my mother.
She went berserk. She shouted, she screamed, she smacked my bum, she slapped my face, she smacked my bum again, and she yelled over and over, 'How COULD you!? How COULD you?!! You dirty little BITCH!!' At that moment I saw my future, although I didn't know it then. When I came home dishevelled from the pub at 16 and claimed I was raped by a boy I knew, my mother shut me in my room and went on and on about the short pink dress I was wearing. She refused to take me to the police, or the hospital, because it 'was all my fault.' Here, at 8, she assumed I had set this situation up, and willing made myself drunk in order to...what? Embarrass her? Humiliate the family? How could a family like the Russells be further humiliated than they already were? Was she in denial? Years of therapy have passed, and all I feel for my mother is sadness. How sad she was to define her life so pointlessly on reputation and 'what other people think.' If only she had allowed us some failures, and herself some imperfections, then we could have perhaps bonded. Instead, we fractured, and when she stood up at my dad's funeral, to cry for a man she had left for another, I wanted to protest she was not part of those mourning, she had no place there, this was just more posturing for the sake of a family 'reputation' she clearly had no idea had never existed in the first place.
All of us were poured into the Toyota, which resembled more a butter box than a dim sim. Dad drove us home, stopping once to throw up his own party-sausage-roll-alcohol-mess. This disgusted my mother, who shouted and roared, unaware she was herself a violent and rather pathetic drunk. Having driven most of the way home, the distance from Pennington to Valley View being about 25 minutes, we were outside the Yatala prison when I said I felt sick. 'Mum, I think I'm going to be sick,' I said. She turned on me, alcohol fuelling her rage, 'Don't you DARE be sick YOUNG LADY! How DARE you? If you are sick I will make you clean the car when we get home!' Now, movement, espcially in a car with little windows and not enough air, will always make the inebriated feel much, much worse. Clearly, my father had suffered this sensation already. Now it was my turn. Mum was nuts thinking she could hold back the bile by bullying. At the top of the hill, I lost control of my stomach, adding noxious fumes and messy fluids to the already suffering little car. To say my mother went balastic would be understating it. She turned her shoulders as completely as she could, and begin to smack whatever parts of me she could reach; my head, my thigh, my arm, my shins. I cringed into the corner, but could not escape her probing arm, as she switched sides to reach me more effectively.
Five minutes later we were home. It now being very late, I wished for a nice bath and my bed. I was bruised, smelled like an old man's hostel, and was very, very tired. No such luck. Mum, putting the angelic and sleeping Wendy to bed, came out with a bucket of soapy water and a rag. 'Clean the car,' she spat, and I did. I was sick twice more, just because looking at sick makes you feel sick, but luckily reached the garden. Somewhere in my head I wondered if mum would make me clean that, too.
And dendrites were forming a pattern inside my hypothalamus - dad, wherever he was, wasn't helping.
posted by Mama Conor @ 12:17 AM
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