Cups with No Handles

This wasn’t the first time I had left Les but, by golly, I wasn’t going back this time. No, sir! I’d had enough. I was never ever going to feed another chook or milk another cow or cut up another seed potato! And I certainly wasn’t going to let my kids become slaves to farm work! I rationalised. I stood up after shoving Peter’s bed along towards the girls’ bed and, hands on hips, looked at the kids all standing in line looking back at me. I fixed a cheery expression on my face.

‘Jan, help Peter tie his shoes. Donna, here’s your coat. Come on, it’s time for tea.’

I grabbed Peter’s hand and, with the girls trailing behind, the four of us went out into Camberwell Road and turned towards the Junction to look for a fish and chip shop where I knew for sixpence we could get enough chips to feed an army.

Of course, it was hopeless. An unemployed single mother with three kids in a boarding house in the early fifties couldn’t survive. I hadn’t worked in ten years, and so I was virtually unemployable, something I hadn’t thought through thoroughly when I grabbed the kids and took flight.

I knew that, even if I could find a job, it would be an impossible situation. What would I do with the kids when I was off at work? Was I willing to leave them alone? No! I knew how devastating that had been for Les when his mother left him alone with his little brother. I loved my kids too much. And I didn’t want to be like Grace, did I? I wasn’t that desperate. She had barely survived. If it hadn’t been for my parents keeping a look out for her, who knows how she would have fared? I had no one to look out for me. Ross and Frank Hardy, the only people I knew well enough to turn to, were up in Sydney by then. I imagine I didn’t want to call on Evelyn to help me further if it was she who had helped me in the first place, because I would have known that she was struggling to keep her own head above water. In fact, she was another role model I wanted to avoid – already divorced with two little girls and doing it hard. Jack and Lessie were no use.

With each passing day that the kids and I occupied that room in Camberwell, I felt more and more foolish. The longer I stopped away from Les, the more confused I felt about what I had done. As I began to feel less and less angry with him (in fact, by the third day, I could hardly remember what we had fought about), I began to feel more and more despairing about myself. The thought of going back anywhere near all those cows kept me determined to stay away. I didn’t belong there, I told myself. I didn’t fit into that farming life at all. I hardly knew anyone in the community, still, after all this time! Les was closely associated with the area but I was an outsider. I always would be. I couldn’t face going back. What was I going to do? I didn’t hate Les, but I couldn’t go back to that place. Why didn’t he see that I couldn’t stand it?

Neither could I stay in that room.

Finally, I decided I had no choice but to pack the kids up and go to Mum and Dad in Pakenham, just as I had done all those years ago when I left Molly and Beryl Lockett in the kitchen. Of course, my reception at home was unsympathetic, just as it had been that other time. ‘You’ve made your bed, lie in it,’ said Mum.

And that’s all she would say, over and over. I appealed to Dad, but he wouldn’t have a bar of me. Perhaps he could see what I couldn’t, that my self-concern was getting in the way of my ability to see what was right - for Les, for the kids and even for myself. The fact that Dad wasn’t interested in my pain, and that his indifference might even mean that he was losing respect for his oldest daughter who treasured his every word, appalled me. I couldn’t bear to think he might be disgusted with me. I turned back to Mum. I cried and cried, but she would not change her tune. Eventually, without Dad on my side, I had to give in.

She’s right, I’ve made my bed, I cried to myself. I have no choice but to return. There is no place in this world for a single mum without a job. Oh! Why did I ever get married! Why did I have kids? Why did I let myself become trapped like this? I was too distraught to realise exactly what outrageous thoughts these were, wishing my own children didn’t exist, but it seemed to me my life was ruined and I would never ever amount to anything. I have become my mother! I wailed.

I was broken.

Extract published courtesy of Hybrid Publishers
© Carolyn Landon