Beyond alice, p.13
Beyond Alice, page 13
‘You never know,’ said Mum, kissing us all goodnight. ‘Dad and I will be out soon. Sweet dreams.’
We all tried to stay awake, but before we knew it the light was peeking over the eastern range, Mum and Dad’s swags were already empty, and the heat was laying heavy across the land, making the gum tree leaves droop.
Christmas Day in the bush had begun.
‘Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!’ we shrieked to each other, leaping out of our swags and rushing into the kitchen. Mum was in there, apron tied around her waist, heaving a huge turkey into the oven. She’d ordered it months before from the stock and station agents, and picked it up from Alice Springs last week. There were also piles of chopped potato and pumpkin in trays lined with foil. She must’ve been up for hours, I thought. Her forehead was pricked with bubbles of sweat, but she swept us all up in hugs and kisses and we then raced in to the tree.
‘Look what I’ve got! Look what I’ve got!’ we shouted over and over again, as we pulled out piles of brightly wrapped parcels and ripped them open. Well, I didn’t rip mine. Instead I carefully laid them out in a row and opened them slowly. I couldn’t bear for the moment to pass so quickly. I wanted to make it last.
Soon the back verandah was littered with paper and presents. M’Lis gave me a pony club adventure book, Brett gave me a Famous Five book, Benny gave me a little notebook and pencil, and Mum and Dad gave me an Adventurous Four book. Father Christmas had brought me an enticing book called The Girl’s Own Horse Annual, brimming with short stories, illustrations and photos.
Joy! I hugged my pile to my chest. There was nothing I wanted more than books, especially books about horses. And with Benny’s notebook, I even had pieces of paper on which I could jot down ideas. Perfect!
We all oohed and aahed over each other’s presents. M’Lis, Brett and Ben got saddle blankets for their horses, plus the boys got some more Matchbox cars and trucks, and M’Lis a saddle club book. We all felt so lucky and happy.
‘Back out and roll your swags, quick sticks!’ called Mum, from the kitchen. ‘Don’t want to let any snakes in them.’
Christmas was the only morning we were allowed to get out of our swags and leave the lawn without rolling them up immediately. We rushed back to do that, and then it was time to plait hair, wash faces, have breakfast and head to church with Mum and Dad.
Back in the Flinders Ranges we had gone to the little Methodist church in Cradock often, but in Alice our church attendance was dependent on Dad’s ever-increasing workload.
But Christmas Day we always went to church. It was the one day of the year Dad didn’t work—unless there was a bushfire, of course, or bores or pumps that had to be turned off or on to keep water up to the cattle.
We all piled into the station wagon and hurtled across the corrugated roads at high speed. Normally it was a long and difficult trip to Alice but that day we were flying, and we kids were in high spirits as a result of Dad’s speed. It was made all the more enjoyable by Mum’s desperate pleas of ‘Grant, slow down! Slow down!’ to which Dad paid no attention. We arrived just in time to hear the organ music floating out of the John Flynn Church in Todd Street.
We sweated through a long sermon in suffocating heat, but I didn’t mind too much because I loved the Christmas hymns (especially with Dad singing in his beautiful voice next to me). And I liked the church. It was named after John Flynn, the Presbyterian minister who started the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and the RFDS led to a wonderful woman called Adelaide Miethke starting the School of the Air, my favourite school in the whole world. Sitting there allowed me to dream about those times gone by. My life down south might well have been on another planet.
After church, Mum and Dad spent a seemingly endless amount of time talking to people, and then we zoomed back home in time for Mum to really get stuck into lunch preparation. We kids were directed to finalise the laying of the table with special Christmas napkins, bonbons and tinsel. The dining room was extra hot, but Mum said it was the only place for Christmas lunch.
‘It wouldn’t be Christmas if we were on the back verandah!’ she said, raising her eyebrows at the very suggestion.
Before long, the turkey was sizzling and the vegetables crisp, and friends and visitors swarmed in. Mum had said we were having an ‘orphans’ Christmas’, which meant including some young ringers and jillaroos in town who hadn’t been able to go home for Christmas; other families like Dr and Mrs Peterkin and their boys (who really were part of our family) would all join us from Alice. If we couldn’t have our own extended family, we’d have the next best thing.
Soon there were many people, and hugs and kisses, and Mum rushed to and from the dining room, looking hotter and hotter but happier and happier as she laid out the turkey, vegetables and gravy. The aromas of juicy meat and crispy potatoes were delicious. We all assembled, Dad said grace and carved the turkey (which looked ‘perfectly succulent inside’, according to Mrs Peterkin, who knew these things), Mum took off her apron and we all sat down.
Dad had checked the temperature gauge just before lunch and announced it was hovering around the low forties and would only get hotter that afternoon. It occurred to me that nobody thought it at all strange that we were plunging into a traditional English Christmas lunch in the middle of the desert. But is there any other way? I thought.
We kids, and the ringers and jillaroos, got right into the Christmas spirit. We pulled bonbons, put paper crowns on our heads and took dishes to and from the kitchen, until Mum brought back in the best part of lunch: rich plum pudding with creamy brandy custard, and strawberries and ice cream.
Mum had made the plum pudding months ago, and hung it in a calico bag where she said it was ‘soaking up the brandy’. I thought it was a good thing the Headmistress couldn’t see us now, although Mum assured me all the alcohol had been burnt off everything.
But it was the strawberries we kids loved. We rarely had them. They weren’t grown in Alice Springs, and Mum had ordered them in specially. Ice cream was only for special occasions, so we kids waited all year long for it. I squashed the sweet berries into my mouth, mixed them up with now melting ice cream, and proclaimed it ‘heaven’.
By the time lunch was over, everyone was happy, and all I wanted to do was escape into my books. But first there were endless piles of dishes to be done.
‘Why don’t the boys have to help?’ I grumbled to Mum, as M’Lis, the jillaroos and I plunged dishes into steaming water. Cleaning up after Christmas lunch meant scrubbing and washing and wiping for hours, and it wasn’t fair that the boys got out of it. They’d headed off to spin yarns with the young ringers while Dad and the other men retreated to the cool of his bar.
Mum shrugged, because that’s just the way things were, and said, ‘That’s not the Christmas spirit, is it, Tanya? If you hurry up and stop complaining, you’ll soon be finished.’
It seemed to take forever but finally it was done. Mum and her friends sat down to chat, and M’Lis and I snuck out towards the verandah near our bedroom, books piled high in our arms.
The cement step there was the coolest place we could find, and there we curled up, diving into the magical worlds that awaited us. Pungent eucalyptus hung heavy in the hot afternoon air. The afternoon slipped by and eventually the sun lowered. The door to the bar opened and I could hear Dad calling everyone for cricket. M’Lis jumped up and ran to join them.
As I read, I could hear the thwack of the cricket ball, over and over again; Brett shouting ‘Howzat?’; cheers, yells. I imagined the cricket ball sailing over the washing line. ‘He’s out!’ came the roar. Dad had a great spin, and whenever he bowled someone out he would grin cheekily afterwards. I could imagine it as I turned the pages, comforted by those familiar sounds and images.
Then, opening up the thick Annual, which I’d saved until last, I started reading again.
‘Once upon a time …’
Christmas in the bush.
14
First Night Back
Second Year, February 1976
The school year began with a thump of suitcases, an array of bewildered expressions on First Year faces, and the strange sensation that I was no longer the new kid on the block.
But M’Lis was.
‘I’m just down the corridor,’ I told her reassuringly, as we put the last of her washbag items into the communal cupboard. She and I were standing in Big Drew, the dormitory I’d been in all last year, and it was strange to be there knowing it was no longer my dorm. ‘I’ve got to go and unpack now. And make sure Janie’s okay.’
She looked at me with wide, uncertain eyes. ‘You’re leaving me?’
‘No, I’m just going down to the Second Year area. Not far away. I’ll come back and see you as soon as I can.’
‘Can’t I come with you?’ She looked quickly around Big Drew. It was filled with all the new First Years unpacking and trying to get to know one another. ‘I don’t know anyone here.’
I stumbled over my words. ‘No, Lissy darling, you can’t come with me. You have to stay here with the First Years.’
She shrank back. ‘Why can’t I come with you?’
My throat constricted. ‘You’re not really allowed down there with me. And I have to go and see my … my friends, and say hello. I haven’t seen them all summer.’ I paused. ‘And Janie’s by herself, too.’
I still couldn’t believe Janie was actually there with us. It was truly amazing that after months of writing letters to our parents, and begging them every holidays, we’d pulled off real magic—Janie had been allowed to join M’Lis and me at boarding school.
M’Lis considered this. She sat on the end of her bed and looked at her feet. She seemed so tiny and alone.
‘I’ll come back as soon as I can. As soon as I can find Janie.’
Janie was far away in another dormitory called Tower (so called because it sat under an exciting-looking tower), M’Lis was in Big Drew now, and I was in between them. The Second Years were in a number of small dormitories, all split by the Senior Mistress’s quarters, and to get from one side of the Second Year bedrooms to the other almost involved a packed lunch and a water bag—there were numerous corridors, and yet more stairs. Janie might almost have been in another wing.
‘Okay, Lis?’ But my words were stilted, and I gazed at her precious face, the freckles on her nose standing out. My brave, bold little sister, who could ride a horse and chase cattle as well as any fully grown man, was lost in this overwhelmingly big new world.
‘Okay.’
I could hardly bring myself to leave her. Every elder sister instinct screamed at me to turn around, to run back to her. But every step of my Second Year legs led me down the corridor to my new world.
In the Second Year dormitory I’d been allocated, I found Glenys, Jo, Leona and Louise catching up on holiday news, and a girl I didn’t recognise with short blonde hair.
‘Hello, Tanya!’ They welcomed me back with big smiles and we all exchanged hugs. I felt a surge of happiness. I looked around, longing to see Treena, too. But she was also in Tower.
‘This is Carolyn,’ said Louise, bringing the girl with short blonde hair over to my bed. ‘She’s new, also from the mid-north.’
Carolyn had an infectious giggle. ‘Jo told me that you’ve made progress this year. Small chests of drawers next to the beds?’
‘You can put two photos on them, too, but no more’—Jo joined us, rolling her eyes—‘or they’ll be confiscated.’
We all started giggling. It felt good—a relief, a release.
As I unpacked and tried to orientate myself, Jackie dashed through the door. She was followed by two girls, each with dark hair and smiles, one taller than the other.
‘Howdy, Heaslip!’ Jackie breezed. ‘Do you remember Chris Davey? She’s been a daybug for the last two years. Joining us now because her parents are in Fiji. And a newbie—Sally, from the south-east.’
I smiled up at them all shyly. I remembered Chris well. She was in Corinth house, very sporty, and a well-known whiz on the netball court. I wondered if she was sad at losing her parents to Fiji, but she appeared very much at ease. Sally was laughing uproariously at something Jackie had said flicking back a bunch of brown curls from her forehead, and, like Carolyn, she looked right at home.
More country girls were ushered in, none of whom we’d ever met—Lindy, Fiona and another Chris. They stood awkwardly apart, Lindy scuffing her black ripple-soled shoes against the door frame, as though she’d rather be anywhere but here. None of them looked at home at all.
Then another smiling face arrived—Meredith, who’d also been a daybug the year before. She was popular and we were all excited she was joining us.
‘Where’s your friend Janie?’ asked Jackie, plonking herself on my bed.
‘Downstairs. She’ll be here soon. I can’t wait to introduce you all!’
‘You’ve told us lots about her. We feel like we know her,’ said a familiar voice at the door. It was Treena, her face aglow and her peaches-and-cream complexion as perfect as ever, despite a dusting of summer tan.
‘Hello, Treena!’ I cried, and waved her over. ‘I can’t believe we’re not next to each other!’
We hugged. I was so happy to see her again.
Denise and Angela arrived next, arguing fiercely about tennis. I was so happy to see them, too. Before long we were all together, exchanging summer stories and talking about classes we’d have this year. Jill and Kerry rushed in, throwing pillows at each other that they’d brought from their dorm, and Margi, in her kind way, came to see how I was.
‘Girls, that’s quite enough.’
It was Miss Wadley in the doorway, blocking out the light.
‘You may have behaved like this over the holidays, but you are now back here in the Boarding House, and we are ladies. There is something else I wish to make clear to you.’
She clicked her teeth, while casting her unsmiling eyes over us.
‘You are no longer First Years. That may have given you a certain excuse for not knowing how to behave at certain times last year’—did she look at me then?—‘but no longer. You are now Second Years, and you are to set an example for the new First Years. They will be looking to you for your leadership.’ With that she swept out, throwing over her shoulder, ‘Do not be late for dinner.’
Most of the Second Years snorted at her departing back, while the new girls looked stunned.
‘Get used to it,’ someone shrugged. ‘There’s no motherly love to be found here.’
‘It’s prison,’ someone else said, savagely. ‘They break us down, keep us in fear of punishment, make us compliant; you know how it goes.’
Carolyn had stopped giggling. Perhaps she didn’t know. Perhaps she’d read the same Enid Blyton boarding school books I had, and had thought that boarding school would be a jolly lark, full of kind and wise mistresses.
Next minute, a girl with blonde hair and a snub nose put her head around the corner. It was a welcome relief. ‘Janie!’ I said. ‘You found us!’
Janie came in, looking bemused. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this place before,’ she said, shaking her head. Given Janie had grown up in the desert with Pitjantjatjara children, it was hardly surprising. ‘Or these—what do you call them—mistresses?’
After introducing Janie, I led her down the corridor towards Big Drew. ‘This was my dorm last year,’ I explained. ‘And it’s where M’Lis is now.’
M’Lis was sitting where I’d left her.
It was like watching a slow-motion replay of me, on the same bed, at the same time last year. No capacity to engage; no skills. No Treena either, I realised.
‘Lissy!’ I threaded my way through the throng of First Years and sat down next to her. ‘Here’s Janie. I told you we’d come back.’
‘What a huge room!’ exclaimed Janie, gazing around in disbelief. ‘What do you think of it all, Lis?’
Before M’Lis could answer, the dinner gong echoed downstairs. A mistress arrived to round up the First Years, and M’Lis had to go with her. As we walked out with M’Lis, the mistress turned to Janie and me and said curtly, ‘You two are Second Years, and Big Drew is out of bounds to you now. Please don’t let me see you here again.’
Janie raised her eyebrows.
‘It’s like this all the time. We’re always in trouble for something,’ I shrugged, as I led her downstairs.
As we walked, I thought about the Headmistress’s end-of-year report, and the way she’d described—mockingly, I assumed—we young boarders as ‘imprisoned, never-released exiles’.
Another comment she’d made in the report came to mind: ‘In the Boarding House, full again this year, the responsibilities devolving on the Senior Mistress and her staff are consistent and demanding; it is so simple to take the easy way out but the lives of our girls are worthy of so much more than that.’
Easy way out? Worthy of what? We’d only been back a short time and already the words and actions of the Boarding House Mistresses suggested they didn’t think we were worthy of very much at all. And what was the easy way out, anyway? Jailing us completely? I shuddered.
Groups of girls were lined up in front of the dining room window, peering at the new seating lists. When I found out where we were sitting, I showed Janie her table and then found mine. All the while I kept a lookout for M’Lis, who was there with the other First Years. We exchanged little smiles, and I stood against my chair, feeling suddenly exhausted.
Dinner came and went, its rituals and processes making it feel as if I’d never been away. Bells, standing in silence, more bells. The Headmistress said grace, we all mumbled ‘Amen’, the Headmistress said, ‘Please be seated’, and we sat—amid an enormous scraping of chairs.
Not good enough.
The Headmistress rang the little bell on the table next to her, and we all fell silent.
‘Girls, we do not make that kind of noise in the dining room. No doubt you’ve all forgotten over the holidays, but stand up and try again. Quietly, this time.’
We did this twice more until we got it right.
I was on a table with girls from other years, plus Carolyn, who sat next to me. She gazed, awestruck, as the trolleys were brought in, allocated girls collected the food, and we went through the lengthy serving ritual. After spicy sausages in a layer of grease and mashed potatoes, we cleared the plates and a designated ‘dessert girl’ collected a bowl each of stewed prunes and creamed rice from the end table. They were then doled out in the same lengthy ritual. I looked down at my serviette, with my name sewn onto it, and my stomach contracted. I thought of everyone at home right now, eating one of Mum’s wonderful dinners of steak, baked potatoes and salad, and blinked hard.
We all tried to stay awake, but before we knew it the light was peeking over the eastern range, Mum and Dad’s swags were already empty, and the heat was laying heavy across the land, making the gum tree leaves droop.
Christmas Day in the bush had begun.
‘Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!’ we shrieked to each other, leaping out of our swags and rushing into the kitchen. Mum was in there, apron tied around her waist, heaving a huge turkey into the oven. She’d ordered it months before from the stock and station agents, and picked it up from Alice Springs last week. There were also piles of chopped potato and pumpkin in trays lined with foil. She must’ve been up for hours, I thought. Her forehead was pricked with bubbles of sweat, but she swept us all up in hugs and kisses and we then raced in to the tree.
‘Look what I’ve got! Look what I’ve got!’ we shouted over and over again, as we pulled out piles of brightly wrapped parcels and ripped them open. Well, I didn’t rip mine. Instead I carefully laid them out in a row and opened them slowly. I couldn’t bear for the moment to pass so quickly. I wanted to make it last.
Soon the back verandah was littered with paper and presents. M’Lis gave me a pony club adventure book, Brett gave me a Famous Five book, Benny gave me a little notebook and pencil, and Mum and Dad gave me an Adventurous Four book. Father Christmas had brought me an enticing book called The Girl’s Own Horse Annual, brimming with short stories, illustrations and photos.
Joy! I hugged my pile to my chest. There was nothing I wanted more than books, especially books about horses. And with Benny’s notebook, I even had pieces of paper on which I could jot down ideas. Perfect!
We all oohed and aahed over each other’s presents. M’Lis, Brett and Ben got saddle blankets for their horses, plus the boys got some more Matchbox cars and trucks, and M’Lis a saddle club book. We all felt so lucky and happy.
‘Back out and roll your swags, quick sticks!’ called Mum, from the kitchen. ‘Don’t want to let any snakes in them.’
Christmas was the only morning we were allowed to get out of our swags and leave the lawn without rolling them up immediately. We rushed back to do that, and then it was time to plait hair, wash faces, have breakfast and head to church with Mum and Dad.
Back in the Flinders Ranges we had gone to the little Methodist church in Cradock often, but in Alice our church attendance was dependent on Dad’s ever-increasing workload.
But Christmas Day we always went to church. It was the one day of the year Dad didn’t work—unless there was a bushfire, of course, or bores or pumps that had to be turned off or on to keep water up to the cattle.
We all piled into the station wagon and hurtled across the corrugated roads at high speed. Normally it was a long and difficult trip to Alice but that day we were flying, and we kids were in high spirits as a result of Dad’s speed. It was made all the more enjoyable by Mum’s desperate pleas of ‘Grant, slow down! Slow down!’ to which Dad paid no attention. We arrived just in time to hear the organ music floating out of the John Flynn Church in Todd Street.
We sweated through a long sermon in suffocating heat, but I didn’t mind too much because I loved the Christmas hymns (especially with Dad singing in his beautiful voice next to me). And I liked the church. It was named after John Flynn, the Presbyterian minister who started the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and the RFDS led to a wonderful woman called Adelaide Miethke starting the School of the Air, my favourite school in the whole world. Sitting there allowed me to dream about those times gone by. My life down south might well have been on another planet.
After church, Mum and Dad spent a seemingly endless amount of time talking to people, and then we zoomed back home in time for Mum to really get stuck into lunch preparation. We kids were directed to finalise the laying of the table with special Christmas napkins, bonbons and tinsel. The dining room was extra hot, but Mum said it was the only place for Christmas lunch.
‘It wouldn’t be Christmas if we were on the back verandah!’ she said, raising her eyebrows at the very suggestion.
Before long, the turkey was sizzling and the vegetables crisp, and friends and visitors swarmed in. Mum had said we were having an ‘orphans’ Christmas’, which meant including some young ringers and jillaroos in town who hadn’t been able to go home for Christmas; other families like Dr and Mrs Peterkin and their boys (who really were part of our family) would all join us from Alice. If we couldn’t have our own extended family, we’d have the next best thing.
Soon there were many people, and hugs and kisses, and Mum rushed to and from the dining room, looking hotter and hotter but happier and happier as she laid out the turkey, vegetables and gravy. The aromas of juicy meat and crispy potatoes were delicious. We all assembled, Dad said grace and carved the turkey (which looked ‘perfectly succulent inside’, according to Mrs Peterkin, who knew these things), Mum took off her apron and we all sat down.
Dad had checked the temperature gauge just before lunch and announced it was hovering around the low forties and would only get hotter that afternoon. It occurred to me that nobody thought it at all strange that we were plunging into a traditional English Christmas lunch in the middle of the desert. But is there any other way? I thought.
We kids, and the ringers and jillaroos, got right into the Christmas spirit. We pulled bonbons, put paper crowns on our heads and took dishes to and from the kitchen, until Mum brought back in the best part of lunch: rich plum pudding with creamy brandy custard, and strawberries and ice cream.
Mum had made the plum pudding months ago, and hung it in a calico bag where she said it was ‘soaking up the brandy’. I thought it was a good thing the Headmistress couldn’t see us now, although Mum assured me all the alcohol had been burnt off everything.
But it was the strawberries we kids loved. We rarely had them. They weren’t grown in Alice Springs, and Mum had ordered them in specially. Ice cream was only for special occasions, so we kids waited all year long for it. I squashed the sweet berries into my mouth, mixed them up with now melting ice cream, and proclaimed it ‘heaven’.
By the time lunch was over, everyone was happy, and all I wanted to do was escape into my books. But first there were endless piles of dishes to be done.
‘Why don’t the boys have to help?’ I grumbled to Mum, as M’Lis, the jillaroos and I plunged dishes into steaming water. Cleaning up after Christmas lunch meant scrubbing and washing and wiping for hours, and it wasn’t fair that the boys got out of it. They’d headed off to spin yarns with the young ringers while Dad and the other men retreated to the cool of his bar.
Mum shrugged, because that’s just the way things were, and said, ‘That’s not the Christmas spirit, is it, Tanya? If you hurry up and stop complaining, you’ll soon be finished.’
It seemed to take forever but finally it was done. Mum and her friends sat down to chat, and M’Lis and I snuck out towards the verandah near our bedroom, books piled high in our arms.
The cement step there was the coolest place we could find, and there we curled up, diving into the magical worlds that awaited us. Pungent eucalyptus hung heavy in the hot afternoon air. The afternoon slipped by and eventually the sun lowered. The door to the bar opened and I could hear Dad calling everyone for cricket. M’Lis jumped up and ran to join them.
As I read, I could hear the thwack of the cricket ball, over and over again; Brett shouting ‘Howzat?’; cheers, yells. I imagined the cricket ball sailing over the washing line. ‘He’s out!’ came the roar. Dad had a great spin, and whenever he bowled someone out he would grin cheekily afterwards. I could imagine it as I turned the pages, comforted by those familiar sounds and images.
Then, opening up the thick Annual, which I’d saved until last, I started reading again.
‘Once upon a time …’
Christmas in the bush.
14
First Night Back
Second Year, February 1976
The school year began with a thump of suitcases, an array of bewildered expressions on First Year faces, and the strange sensation that I was no longer the new kid on the block.
But M’Lis was.
‘I’m just down the corridor,’ I told her reassuringly, as we put the last of her washbag items into the communal cupboard. She and I were standing in Big Drew, the dormitory I’d been in all last year, and it was strange to be there knowing it was no longer my dorm. ‘I’ve got to go and unpack now. And make sure Janie’s okay.’
She looked at me with wide, uncertain eyes. ‘You’re leaving me?’
‘No, I’m just going down to the Second Year area. Not far away. I’ll come back and see you as soon as I can.’
‘Can’t I come with you?’ She looked quickly around Big Drew. It was filled with all the new First Years unpacking and trying to get to know one another. ‘I don’t know anyone here.’
I stumbled over my words. ‘No, Lissy darling, you can’t come with me. You have to stay here with the First Years.’
She shrank back. ‘Why can’t I come with you?’
My throat constricted. ‘You’re not really allowed down there with me. And I have to go and see my … my friends, and say hello. I haven’t seen them all summer.’ I paused. ‘And Janie’s by herself, too.’
I still couldn’t believe Janie was actually there with us. It was truly amazing that after months of writing letters to our parents, and begging them every holidays, we’d pulled off real magic—Janie had been allowed to join M’Lis and me at boarding school.
M’Lis considered this. She sat on the end of her bed and looked at her feet. She seemed so tiny and alone.
‘I’ll come back as soon as I can. As soon as I can find Janie.’
Janie was far away in another dormitory called Tower (so called because it sat under an exciting-looking tower), M’Lis was in Big Drew now, and I was in between them. The Second Years were in a number of small dormitories, all split by the Senior Mistress’s quarters, and to get from one side of the Second Year bedrooms to the other almost involved a packed lunch and a water bag—there were numerous corridors, and yet more stairs. Janie might almost have been in another wing.
‘Okay, Lis?’ But my words were stilted, and I gazed at her precious face, the freckles on her nose standing out. My brave, bold little sister, who could ride a horse and chase cattle as well as any fully grown man, was lost in this overwhelmingly big new world.
‘Okay.’
I could hardly bring myself to leave her. Every elder sister instinct screamed at me to turn around, to run back to her. But every step of my Second Year legs led me down the corridor to my new world.
In the Second Year dormitory I’d been allocated, I found Glenys, Jo, Leona and Louise catching up on holiday news, and a girl I didn’t recognise with short blonde hair.
‘Hello, Tanya!’ They welcomed me back with big smiles and we all exchanged hugs. I felt a surge of happiness. I looked around, longing to see Treena, too. But she was also in Tower.
‘This is Carolyn,’ said Louise, bringing the girl with short blonde hair over to my bed. ‘She’s new, also from the mid-north.’
Carolyn had an infectious giggle. ‘Jo told me that you’ve made progress this year. Small chests of drawers next to the beds?’
‘You can put two photos on them, too, but no more’—Jo joined us, rolling her eyes—‘or they’ll be confiscated.’
We all started giggling. It felt good—a relief, a release.
As I unpacked and tried to orientate myself, Jackie dashed through the door. She was followed by two girls, each with dark hair and smiles, one taller than the other.
‘Howdy, Heaslip!’ Jackie breezed. ‘Do you remember Chris Davey? She’s been a daybug for the last two years. Joining us now because her parents are in Fiji. And a newbie—Sally, from the south-east.’
I smiled up at them all shyly. I remembered Chris well. She was in Corinth house, very sporty, and a well-known whiz on the netball court. I wondered if she was sad at losing her parents to Fiji, but she appeared very much at ease. Sally was laughing uproariously at something Jackie had said flicking back a bunch of brown curls from her forehead, and, like Carolyn, she looked right at home.
More country girls were ushered in, none of whom we’d ever met—Lindy, Fiona and another Chris. They stood awkwardly apart, Lindy scuffing her black ripple-soled shoes against the door frame, as though she’d rather be anywhere but here. None of them looked at home at all.
Then another smiling face arrived—Meredith, who’d also been a daybug the year before. She was popular and we were all excited she was joining us.
‘Where’s your friend Janie?’ asked Jackie, plonking herself on my bed.
‘Downstairs. She’ll be here soon. I can’t wait to introduce you all!’
‘You’ve told us lots about her. We feel like we know her,’ said a familiar voice at the door. It was Treena, her face aglow and her peaches-and-cream complexion as perfect as ever, despite a dusting of summer tan.
‘Hello, Treena!’ I cried, and waved her over. ‘I can’t believe we’re not next to each other!’
We hugged. I was so happy to see her again.
Denise and Angela arrived next, arguing fiercely about tennis. I was so happy to see them, too. Before long we were all together, exchanging summer stories and talking about classes we’d have this year. Jill and Kerry rushed in, throwing pillows at each other that they’d brought from their dorm, and Margi, in her kind way, came to see how I was.
‘Girls, that’s quite enough.’
It was Miss Wadley in the doorway, blocking out the light.
‘You may have behaved like this over the holidays, but you are now back here in the Boarding House, and we are ladies. There is something else I wish to make clear to you.’
She clicked her teeth, while casting her unsmiling eyes over us.
‘You are no longer First Years. That may have given you a certain excuse for not knowing how to behave at certain times last year’—did she look at me then?—‘but no longer. You are now Second Years, and you are to set an example for the new First Years. They will be looking to you for your leadership.’ With that she swept out, throwing over her shoulder, ‘Do not be late for dinner.’
Most of the Second Years snorted at her departing back, while the new girls looked stunned.
‘Get used to it,’ someone shrugged. ‘There’s no motherly love to be found here.’
‘It’s prison,’ someone else said, savagely. ‘They break us down, keep us in fear of punishment, make us compliant; you know how it goes.’
Carolyn had stopped giggling. Perhaps she didn’t know. Perhaps she’d read the same Enid Blyton boarding school books I had, and had thought that boarding school would be a jolly lark, full of kind and wise mistresses.
Next minute, a girl with blonde hair and a snub nose put her head around the corner. It was a welcome relief. ‘Janie!’ I said. ‘You found us!’
Janie came in, looking bemused. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this place before,’ she said, shaking her head. Given Janie had grown up in the desert with Pitjantjatjara children, it was hardly surprising. ‘Or these—what do you call them—mistresses?’
After introducing Janie, I led her down the corridor towards Big Drew. ‘This was my dorm last year,’ I explained. ‘And it’s where M’Lis is now.’
M’Lis was sitting where I’d left her.
It was like watching a slow-motion replay of me, on the same bed, at the same time last year. No capacity to engage; no skills. No Treena either, I realised.
‘Lissy!’ I threaded my way through the throng of First Years and sat down next to her. ‘Here’s Janie. I told you we’d come back.’
‘What a huge room!’ exclaimed Janie, gazing around in disbelief. ‘What do you think of it all, Lis?’
Before M’Lis could answer, the dinner gong echoed downstairs. A mistress arrived to round up the First Years, and M’Lis had to go with her. As we walked out with M’Lis, the mistress turned to Janie and me and said curtly, ‘You two are Second Years, and Big Drew is out of bounds to you now. Please don’t let me see you here again.’
Janie raised her eyebrows.
‘It’s like this all the time. We’re always in trouble for something,’ I shrugged, as I led her downstairs.
As we walked, I thought about the Headmistress’s end-of-year report, and the way she’d described—mockingly, I assumed—we young boarders as ‘imprisoned, never-released exiles’.
Another comment she’d made in the report came to mind: ‘In the Boarding House, full again this year, the responsibilities devolving on the Senior Mistress and her staff are consistent and demanding; it is so simple to take the easy way out but the lives of our girls are worthy of so much more than that.’
Easy way out? Worthy of what? We’d only been back a short time and already the words and actions of the Boarding House Mistresses suggested they didn’t think we were worthy of very much at all. And what was the easy way out, anyway? Jailing us completely? I shuddered.
Groups of girls were lined up in front of the dining room window, peering at the new seating lists. When I found out where we were sitting, I showed Janie her table and then found mine. All the while I kept a lookout for M’Lis, who was there with the other First Years. We exchanged little smiles, and I stood against my chair, feeling suddenly exhausted.
Dinner came and went, its rituals and processes making it feel as if I’d never been away. Bells, standing in silence, more bells. The Headmistress said grace, we all mumbled ‘Amen’, the Headmistress said, ‘Please be seated’, and we sat—amid an enormous scraping of chairs.
Not good enough.
The Headmistress rang the little bell on the table next to her, and we all fell silent.
‘Girls, we do not make that kind of noise in the dining room. No doubt you’ve all forgotten over the holidays, but stand up and try again. Quietly, this time.’
We did this twice more until we got it right.
I was on a table with girls from other years, plus Carolyn, who sat next to me. She gazed, awestruck, as the trolleys were brought in, allocated girls collected the food, and we went through the lengthy serving ritual. After spicy sausages in a layer of grease and mashed potatoes, we cleared the plates and a designated ‘dessert girl’ collected a bowl each of stewed prunes and creamed rice from the end table. They were then doled out in the same lengthy ritual. I looked down at my serviette, with my name sewn onto it, and my stomach contracted. I thought of everyone at home right now, eating one of Mum’s wonderful dinners of steak, baked potatoes and salad, and blinked hard.
