Chapter 3
THEN
They were also well-known in our community as the parents of Mad Mabel.
I don’t remember ever discovering that was my nickname. Like discovering you have blue eyes or a vagina, it was something I’d always known but never thought a great deal about. I do, however, remember the day my mother found out.
It was a Sunday morning in the sweltering heat of an Australian summer, and I was six.
The sky was the kind of endless blue you could fall into, and the parishioners of St. Mary’s had spilled out into the courtyard after Mass and immediately split into three distinct factions: the men, who stood in loose circles, talking about business; the women, who stood in tight knots, gossiping about other women; and the children, who, elated after being forced to sit still for an hour, tore around on the grass outside the Presbytery, snatching each other’s hats and frisbeeing them in front of oncoming traffic.
The men’s conversation drifted over us—chatter about the Menzies government, the rise of suburban development, and whether petrol rationing would ever return.
The women’s talk was lighter, filled with murmurs of who was seen at Georges of Collins Street last week, which girl was engaged to a bank clerk, and how so-and-so’s son had joined the RAAF.
I remained at my mother’s side, something that I knew caused her tremendous irritation, particularly when my presence impeded the divulging of some juicy gossip by another mother. Still, her irritation was preferable to the humiliation of trying to join in where I wasn’t wanted.
That particular day, I’d been grateful that another child—a little boy of about four or five—also insisted on hanging about his mother’s legs, saving me from being the only one. Until he’d pointed his chubby little finger at me and said, “You’re Mad Mabel.”
My mother looked down at the boy, and then me. “Did you just call her Mad Mabel?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Everyone does.”
“Why?”
Neither the boy nor I had an answer for this. It hadn’t occurred to me that there would be a reason, beyond a way to be cruel.
“Does everyone call you this?” she asked, as we walked home from Mass a little while later in the shimmering heat. “Even your friends?”
“Friends?”
Mum looked as if she was about to repeat herself. Yes, Mabel, friends. Then it dawned. “You don’t have any friends?”
It felt impossible that this could be news to her.
Had she lived in an alternate house, where the doorbell rang constantly, and the backyard was full of the squeals of neighborhood children?
Was it possible that she’d been so caught up in her own affairs that she hadn’t noticed what a social failure her daughter was?
She became silent, perhaps thinking of all the opportunities I’d had to make friends—the playgroups, the church activities, the playdates at the houses of her friends who had similar-aged children.
The reasons these didn’t pan out varied.
The church kids didn’t think me pious enough; the kids from playgroup were scared of tall people; the twin daughters of my mother’s friend Pauline already had each other, so didn’t need more friends.
I’d never expressly told my mother these things, we didn’t have that kind of relationship.
But I assumed she’d noticed. I’d thought she’d remained silent to spare me the embarrassment.
“I did have Daphne,” I said.
I said it to try to cheer Mum up, but it didn’t have the desired effect.
Daphne had been in my class at four-year-old kindergarten.
She’d started a few weeks after the rest of us, after her parents had relocated from England.
After several weeks of following the teacher around at playtime while other kids buddied up to play, she’d marched right up to me and said: “You’re the princess and I’m the wicked queen, get in your tower! ”
And we were off.
Daphne was the friend I’d been waiting for.
She had a funny accent and said things like “balderdash” and “tickety-boo” and my personal favorite, “corsets I will.” She ate buttered bread with Marmite, and said “I say” when surprised.
She was the greatest thing to ever happen to me—she was cheeky and naughty and we were forever getting into mischief together.
Perhaps this was why my mother hadn’t been terribly disappointed when I told her the news that Daphne was moving back to England.
I was still brokenhearted.
“Well,” Mum said, as we began to walk again. She reached into her handbag—a soft leather clutch from Finlay Bros.—and took out her handkerchief, which she used to dab at her forehead. “You’ll make other friends then. At school. Don’t worry.”
School, Mum decided, was where friendship would finally happen for me.
She was sure of it. I didn’t share her confidence.
Even at a young age, I’d understood that school was nothing more than a convenient place to put the youth during those years they were not yet fit for the workforce.
The nuns would be strict, the uniforms scratchy, and the days long. But Mum was adamant.
I tried not to get caught up in her enthusiasm, but clearly, I didn’t try hard enough. Because when my first day came around, I was hopeful. Almost expectant. Unfortunately, with great expectation came the opportunity for great disappointment.
School is an arduous thing. Sure, there are a few who sail through it like a yacht in the breeze, untouched by its breathless cruelty, but the vast majority would agree that it’s ghastly.
The stiff, itchy uniform. The unspoken hierarchy of the playground, policed far more rigorously than anything in the adult world.
The lack of control over your life. The viciousness and unpredictability of a peer group hardwired to protect their place in the pack at all costs.
The relentless inevitability of school, day after day after day.
To add insult to injury, it’s sold to you by older folk like it’s a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Talk about gaslighting.
An only child of uninterested parents, I was left to my own devices for most of my formative years—encouraged to run off and play or simply make myself scarce.
Once children were old enough to walk, they were expected to walk out the door and start creating mischief somewhere else.
There’s nothing wrong with this model of parenting, per se, and for many kids it worked well.
There was the beach and bushlands to explore, billy carts to race, and footy games in vacant lots that lasted until the streetlights flickered on.
But for me, with no friends, it meant childhood was desperately, bone-achingly lonely.
Given my enjoyment of learning, my red hair, and my unusual height, I was an obvious target of bullying at school.
A smart girl who liked books and had the nerve to be taller than half the boys?
Unforgivable. In grade 4, I was locked in the boys’ bathroom at school and not released until I was prepared to declare that I had ambiguous genitalia.
In grade 6, on the school bus, I was punched in the spine so hard I wet myself.
The bus driver didn’t stop either. He merely called out for us to “pipe down, in the back.” In grade 7, I was given six sharp whacks on the hand with the strap by Brother Stanislaus for defacing a school library book that had been planted in my bag.
These indignities were distressing, of course, but nothing was as shameful as the performance I went through every afternoon when Mum asked, “Did you have a good day?”
“Great,” I’d say. “Wonderful!”
On the odd occasion, if I could muster it, I’d manage a story about something funny that happened in class or a friend I’d made.
Sometimes I’d dawdle home and pretend that one of the girls from a few streets over had invited me to afternoon tea.
As noble as it would feel to say I did this for Mum’s sake, it isn’t true.
I did it for me. Because, as a few choice victims know, the only thing worse than bullying itself is the shame of speaking it aloud.
My bedroom at Rosehill was enormous by any yardstick. It had its own bathroom, a playroom, and two enormous windows—one that faced the stretch of golden sand leading to the bay, and the other, a huge bay window and seat that overlooked the adjacent cul-de-sac.
The bay window gave me a ringside seat to the neighborhood kids playing, which they always were.
Most of the play revolved around sport. In summer, the boys played cricket; in winter, it was football, our driveway gate serving as the goalposts.
When the weather was nice, I’d open the window so I could listen to them talking.
When my mother noticed me watching, she would suggest I join in, as if such a thing was easy.
When I declined, she inferred that it was my reticence to try that was causing my issues with friends.
She’d sigh dramatically, smooth down the pleats of her skirt, and remind me that when she was my age, she had friends over “for sponge cake and cordial” nearly every weekend.
After a while I understood that I had to march myself down, if only to satisfy Mum and stop her marching me down there herself.
I chose the day I overheard the kids in the street coming up with a plan to scale the back fences of all the houses in a race—a backyard challenge.
Apparently, the Caseys at number 5 had got a new Sunbeam Mixmaster, and whoever made it around the whole cul-de-sac without getting caught by an adult would win one of Mrs. Casey’s famous malted milkshakes, the kind she served in frosty metal cups.
I’m not sure if it was confidence in my climbing or my love of milkshakes that got me out of my window seat that day, but I sidled up to the group of kids who were discussing the best place to start the challenge and blurted out, “Can I play?”
As expected, the kids assessed me with suspicion. It was as if I’d just stepped off one of the flying saucers I’d been hearing about on 3XY radio.
“The fence challenge,” I explained. “I’d like to … join in.”
Their eyes slid back and forth in their sockets as they floundered to figure out who was authorized to answer.
Such was the peculiar world of playground politics—hierarchies formed through footy prowess, sibling seniority, and sheer force of personality.
A few of the younger kids looked scared.
I was scared too, though I was careful not to show it.
My best chance, I’d figured, was to act as though I deserved to be there or, heaven forbid, belonged.
Finally, Billy Harris stepped up, the self-appointed authority. He was the oldest Harris boy, as handsome as he was stupid. I’d never liked the Harris boys. Shifty eyes, same as their father’s.
“All right,” Billy said. “You can be the timekeeper, Mabel. Go into your garden and wait by the fence. When the winner makes it over, come back and tell us who it was.” Billy didn’t even try to conceal his smirk.
“Wait until the winner comes through. I don’t want to see you again until the winner has made it over your fence. ”
As the group ran away, I consoled myself with the fact that I already knew no one was coming.