Chapter three
Loneliness.
1941-1943
No way am I going to put my bottom and vital parts on that seat with a snake lurking down below. I rush down the path only to be met by Mum coming up the other way with the wooden spade. Mum is in her usual smacking mode.
“Did you put those blue marks on the window?” She asks in a threatening voice.
“Mum! There's a snake in the dunny,” I cut in.
She forgets about giving me a thrashing and rushes over the road to fetch Betty's father. Mr Clark comes back with his gun, not to shoot me for messing up the window, but to de-snake the lavatory. They look, but can't find the snake and I never use that toilet again.
Doug starts teaching me how to do things for myself. Things like how to separate two pages in a book by blowing on them. This is a prelude to losing Doug as well. Grandma, Noel and my eldest brother, Douglas, leave for New Zealand and life becomes lonely again. I've lost Doug, Gordon and Brian.
At 7 years of age I start getting migraines. They alternate between pains in the stomach or pains behind one eye. (They are common with children and are called migraine equivalent.) We are short of money and can't pay the bills so they cut off our electricity. So we have no lights or radio. Mum finds a way to turn the power back on for a short time while her favourite radio program is on. We have to lie on the floor, in the dark, with the radio turned right down, so nobody will know. They always start Mum's program by playing 'The Mosquitoes are on Parade.' But we have given up listening to 'Dad and Dave.'
We also have to lie on the floor and hide whenever the landlord comes to collect the rent but eventually we are evicted and we shift (H13) to Manly. Once again I lose my close friends. This time I lose Betty and I never see her again.
In Manly, I go to another Catholic school, (S4) Manly Convent. The children here are very cruel. One hot day, they hold the arm of one of the kids against a hot metal downpipe, until his arm blisters. Another boy and myself are ask