We were never really going to be able to have dinner in peace that day. It was too exciting.  The police were in the streets from lunch time, even though the real action wasn’t until after 6pm.  That was the time the curfew started.  We saw a lot of police on the streets on our way home from school.  They were dressed in green and they wore those funny hats. I remember the hats because they were the only thing that made them look different to the army. The army wore helmets.  They were also on the streets.  They were in big water tanks at street corners, as if waiting for crowds to build so they could disperse them with the water cannons.  People said that the water they used was sewerage but I always thought it smelt more like bleach than farts.

That evening we had dinner early.  I can’t remember what we ate. My sister and I were so excited we couldn’t really sit still. Mum washed the dishes as soon as she could because we were going to bang the pots and pans after dinner and we didn’t have many.

Once the curfew started it always took a little while for people to start making noise. It was like no-one wanted to be the first because no-one wanted the police to be able to tell where the sound was coming from.  We were never first.  Mum didn’t let us start until almost everyone else in the neighbourhood was already in their yard banging their pots and pans.  When we did join in it was the funnest ever! We were allowed to be as loud as we wanted, and my sister and I would laugh and sing along to popular songs.  Sometimes people chanted between the banging and we would join in that too.

I often wondered what it would be like to be on the street when there was a curfew.  To hear the whole neighbourhood banging pots and pans, chanting loudly, but not be able to tell who was joining in and who wasn’t.  I imagined what it would look like to a bird, seeing yard after yard filled with families banging pots and pans, separate but together.  Chanting “the people united will never be defeated”.  United, yet separated by fences.

We were never allowed to stay up until the end – we always had to go to bed before the silence came.  I remember being in bed, tired and sleepy, listening to the pots and pans.  It didn’t keep me awake really, it kind of soothed me.  I felt safe.

In retrospect I don’t think it was safe.  There were police and military on the streets, just outside our door.  Occasionally we’d hear the sound of someone being arrested, or trying to avoid arrest.  They’d say they had a legitimate reason to be on the street.  They were going to work, or home, or hospital. Sometimes crowds would gather, in protest against the curfew, against the government, against the poverty.  And we’d hear the water tanks, and people running, and tear gas. Occasionally there would be distant gunshots.

So yeah, it probably wasn’t safe.  But on those nights, when I was warm in bed, in a room I shared with my sister, listening to the pots and pans and the chants of the neighbours; on those nights I felt safe.

I should mention a historical absurdity going back to before the internet, mobile phones and New Age Life-stylers, and definitely transgender being on the agenda.

I played Renaissance lute,

way before losing my first thumb.

As I started performing, I thought it timely to purchase a concert lute.

I had been playing for about 7 years, and when the new lute arrived, part of the plan was to sell the existing lute to help with this new purchase.

In 1977 my new lute cost $6500.

You could buy a pretty good new car for that way back in those days…..

My lute teacher, since passed on, Roger Treble, mentioned the availability to purchase my old lute to all of his students, and passed on my parents phone number.

On returning to my parents place for tea on a Sunday night, my dad told me someone called John had rung about my lute and left his phone number.

My parents lived at 7 Goodwin St Glen Iris.

And so I rang this guy John.

We start chatting about lute music, guitar music, and my lute.

He too was a student of Rogers.

Our teacher used to roll joints during lessons with me, way back when a hippy was a dude tripper.

Anyways, I say to this nice guy on the phone “Why don’t you borrow my lute for a week and see what you think and if you like it’

Like I’m not manic back then…with spare time when lifestyle meant what it meant…

And so I say to John, and I had seriously done my time at the folks house, from coming of age at 11 or so to 17, when I couldn’t fly out the door fast enough.

I was always doing family things, knew all the neighbours – upwardly downward wanna be lower middle farce.

Anyways I say, ‘I’ll drop it off when it suits you.’

‘Cool, so John what’s your address?’

And he says..

‘Um, it’s um, 4’, and I say ‘what, sorry, what was that street name again? can u spell it please!’

And he says, ‘Goodwin Street, Glen Iris’

I say, ‘John, the pens not working, just hang on, I gotta go to the other end of my parents house, out into the backyard and dig up a pen to write your address – just hang on.’

C’ant remember things like that, gotta put it on paper.

So, I cross the road and ring the door bell.

I know this guy. It’s John, who lives with Barbara, been renting for 4 years, guitar teacher, quiet …..’they keep to themselves’ – neighbours.

My father in his 70’s has had many amusing experiences with John, and the rest of the street – curb side picking up the morning newspaper.

My Dad was very stylish in his dressing gown – Hugh Heffner, playboy era – talking stuff.

So, I go ring the door bell, and I can hear John through the door. He is telling me on the phone, when I’m actually not on the phone, that ‘there is someone at the front door.’

The telephone is stuck by a wire, keeping it pretty much where the telephone table was placed, to keep the telephone where it had to be kept in that one immutable spot.

And so the door opens to a moments hush…

There is John, like I sort of know this guy, maybe talked together a few times.

And he is dressed in a polyester maxi dress, high shoes and make up – as a women.

I say ‘lets have a cup of tea and don’t those high heels kill ur feet?’

He asked me what I thought about him ?

‘Well first of all, um, I am so glad that you are comfy in those high heels. How is it to play guitar with a foot stand in high heels?’

I was right, there are these transgender things you need to know.

Perhaps I should have said ‘Bravo and Mazeltov for being you’.

I can only wish u untold joy, love, peace, celebration, and general madness.

I salute you, but ‘what’s with the jewish Bentleigh 60’s look girl?’

‘U gotta get more mojo darling!’

Excessive affection and unsolicited joy, you are the true belle of both sides of you!

‘And I hope you love the lute!’

The Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse has been getting more than the typical amount of  attention from the world’s media. The stories of the group of men and women known either as the “Ballarat Survivors” or “Team Roma” have been particularly highlighted as they made their unlikely journey from relative obscurity in Ballarat into the cold glare of camera lights in Rome. Up to this point I have successfully ignored the majority of reporting about the Commission because it didn’t apply to me. In fact I have been quietly surprised that, given the prevalence of child sexual abuse within my personal circles, that someone close to me hadn’t become personally involved. For that I am grateful. And then my Mum asked me about a guy I’m friends with on Facebook.

Now, just to explain – my Mum reads my Facebook. She won’t have her own page but she quite likes seeing what is happening on mine. Yeah. It’s weird. Whatever. Not the issue up for discussion here. Anyway she asked me about this fella whose name pops up in my feed occasionally. I explained that I had never actually met him in real lif but that we had a mutual friend who is quite wonderful and that if we did ever meet we would probably be totes BFF. “Hmmmm – is he related to that XYZ* guy?” she asked me innocently. I had no idea who she meant. “The priest from Ballarat.” Nope. No idea. Hadn’t been following it. “You should look it up.”

I looked it up. And what I found was horrifying in the Gothic sense of horror in that I couldn’t look away and I kept digging and reading and picking at it until it bled. I had managed to avoid all of the shit about the Commission and now here it was landed in my lap, and this guy I barely even knew was smack bang in the centre of it.

I wrote a short mesaage to The Guy. It was simple and one of recognition. It merely said “Hey mate, it’s only just come to my attention that you’re That Guy doing That Thing and I just wanted to say I think maybe we have more in common than our mutual friend originally intended and hey what you’re doing is ace and if you ever need anything just yell, yeah?”  I am not sure exactly how he responded but it was probably a thumbs up. The quiet nod and shrug that survivors have established as a means of saying everything whilst remaining silent. I left it at that and for a while it was mostly quiet.

And then it all went batshit crazy. Pell said he was too sick boo hoo. No one believed him for a minute or at least very few thought he was genuine. More and more survivors from Ballarat spoke angrily about wanting to look Pell in the eye. The Guy hinted privately that something amazing was being cooked up and then BOOM like a muthafukin smoke bomb a GoFundMe account was ignited and it set off a chain reaction of tears and feels more than two hundred thousand dollars strong. Big Name Comedians backed it. Big Big Name Cunt Columnists were outraged. I felt something I thought had healed over decades earlier start to tear and I did what I always did… pushed it to the side. Stuff needed doing.

Suddenly I was at the airport to wave goodbye, and because I was meeting The Guy in real physical life for the first time, I wanted to give as optimistic a farewell as possible – so I focused on keeping my shit together. With our Mutual Friend, I had made some little care packages for the Travellers, which is to say she packed a dozen little boxes with bits and bobs and I wrote a nice note for each one. I don’t remember what the notes said but I’m told it was lovely. We were interviewed by national media about why we were there. I said some very articulate words about the Commission being for institutional abuse but that the recognition it was creating was a boon for survivors of familial abuse. As I did so I could feel a few tears sliding dramatically down my already blotchy red face and somewhere in my hyper-vigilant state a voice told me that Sinead O’Connor would be proud.

It was definitely at this point that I clocked something wasn’t right.

Later on at the airport I had the opportunity to meet some of the men traveling to Rome and the chats we had were brief but significant. As we handed out our little care packages one older bloke bluntly asked “why did you make these – why are you being so nice?” Now, it was obvious to me that this was a man who had had a hard life. I figured he wasn’t accustomed to random acts of generosity. I wasn’t sure how much to say. So I did what I usually do and fell back on a straightforward approach, “Because I care. I care what happens. And long haul flights are shit mate.” But what I couldn’t and didn’t say out loud was “because it happened to me too.” But he knew and we just kind of shrugged at each other and I said “this, what you’re doing, is for all of us.” And my voice was choked and the tears were welling and we just did that shrug thing at each other and shook hands and went back to our beers.

Yep. Something was definitely askew inside me. I hadn’t had these feels for a very long time.

Fast forward to Pell ducking and weaving in Rome before the video link. I’m at home on my own in Bendigo, in my pyjamas watching a man half a world away who has nothing and everything to do with me. I watched his performance for days. I was appropriately outraged.

I did nothing.

And then it was over. A video statement  from Team Roma appeared on my Facebook time line,  giving thanks for the support they had and continued to receive. My mind went into quiet overdrive. One phrase in particular repeated itself. The Commissioner had mentioned “gentle euphemisms”. He was referring to the code the priests may have had for what was being perpetrated against thise in their care. The meaning I took from it however was the silent code we survivors have for recognisng one another in a crowd. There is an unspoken code – a secret handshake if you will: “Oh, you had one of those did you? Right. Snap.” I have been asked since what it is that marks us in such a way, that we can see it another person. I don’t know. Yet. It’s body language, tone, behaviour. Something that says “this happened to me and I see it in you too”. A nod and a wink that means it can be left unsaid because, hey – we’re not meant to talk about it.

One the last day of Pellston ‘evidence’ I cried for a few hours with no idea what the duck I was crying for. I finally decided that if these guys could do what they were doing then fuck it. No more silence. All I did was say a few words in a Facebook status update. I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t the outpouring of love and revelation that continued for days. Friends said yes, this had happened to them too. That it happened to a family member. That it had somehow influenced their lives. I spoke of intergenerational trauma. But most of all I discussed why it was that this event – this collective of broken men taking action against their abusers – had had such a huge emotional impact on so many people.

I truly believe that Team Roma had and continues to have so much widespread support because so many people have been affected by child abuse in some form or another, either directly or across generations. And while many of us won’t get a Royal Commission into our abuse because it was our families, not institutions, who were the perpetrators, by no means do we begrudge the justice and recognition finally given now. Because seeing anything done – at all – is an incredible relief. And release.

Last week I called my local CASA to book in for a session. I haven’t talked about my abuse in a counseling environment for decades because I’ve always been “over it”. I haven’t wanted my life to be defined by something that happened 33 years ago. What my brief contact with the Ballarat Survivors has shown me is that while it may not define me, it is there and it’s not going away. So like a fucking cold sore that appears in times of stress, every now and then it will show up and I need a better treatment kit than the one I have now. When I spoke to the counselor making my appointment I mentioned that it was in response to the Commission. “You’re not the first” she said. “I doubt I’ll be the last.” I replied.

So thank you to the Ballarat Survivors and all involved for putting this issue front and centre in the world’s view. It’s been a tough few weeks and there’ll be more tough weeks, but I want the Survivors to look at this shining thing you have done and hold it and own it and know it is yours.

My blog:
http://hoodandhunter.blogspot.com.au/?m=1

We took the wardrobe out onto the nature-strip at 9pm. Two of us squished it through the narrow hallway and chipped a bit of the white paint off the door frame.
Then we didn’t lift it high enough and also managed to collect a clod of mud and grass. It sat a bit lopsided -but steady enough.
I didn’t want to sell it and I didn’t want anyone I knew to have it. I just wanted it gone and out of the house.

It was old heavy wood, two doors with a mirror in between. The doors would swing open any old time they wanted to. I had shoved a bit of folded up newspaper between the doors -I really wedged it in there. It dropped out almost immediately. The wardrobe lived in the spare room with the doors open, I let the whole room absorb its smell (It kind of smelt like an old wet coat that never dried). The whole thing was junk.

The night I decided it had to go wasn’t that special, it wasn’t important. I was sitting in the front room with the TV on and the sound down.
Actually, I was staring at the dead bird (finch?) sketch that was in a thin frame above the TV. I was just thinking about that bird when I decided it was dark enough to dump the old wardrobe. I didn’t even realise that I wanted it gone until that very moment.

It sat in a small room of the house and almost took up the whole length of the wall. just after I moved in, I remember cleaning out washing powder that was scattered all around the base of it. Maybe that was there so it would smell better? I didn’t know and there wasn’t anyone to ask.

A wardrobe that size needs two people to move it. Even with angles and leverage two people had to do it. So I called around to my neighbour Abby’s house, she was always home and asked her for help. Why not? She was always asking me for help to move her crap around.

Abby was grumpy about having to find shoes to wear because it had just been raining. She found a pair though, they where old brown leather and way too large for her. It looked like someone had backed a steam roller over them. I snorted about that and led her back to my house. It was really getting dark now.

We pushed it out of the spare room and one of the doors swung back and hit Abby hard in the face. She almost dropped her end of the wardrobe, but held it together until we got to the spot where I wanted it. I asked if she was okay and she grumbled something that I wasn’t bothered too much to understand.

It was gone in under an hour. I watched it go from behind the curtains in the front room. The TV light flickering around the room and the sound still muted.

“How was the trip to Barcelona?” he asks.

I begin to answer, but only half heartedly. I know where this conversation is going. He’ll wait till I need to take a breath and then he will rectify our roles. He will talk and I will listen.

He will tell me about his trip to Barcelona.

About how he spent $600 on wine.

About how he went to an exclusive restaurant owned by a man he used to do business with.

About how he had a chance encounter with a celebrity who thought he was funny.

The longest stories I’ve ever heard have been told by men who think women talk too much.

After five minutes my cheeks start to hurt from smiling attentively.

After ten minutes I find myself agonising over eye contact.

After fifteen minutes I notice my computer screen has gone to sleep.

I try to wind it down. I break eye contact, I look at my watch, and I say ‘wow, sounds like a great trip’ in a tone that I feel conveys finality. Tone only works if someone is listening to you.

He keeps going. We’ve someone moved away from Barcelona and are now onto the topic of his son.

The anecdotes keep coming. I’ve heard 60% of them before so at least I know where I’m meant to laugh.

Eventually he glances beyond my head to the computer screen of someone else.

“Oh I’ve got to get to another meeting. Sorry” he says.

Sorry? As if I was the one talking and he had interrupted.

Sorry? As if he was apologising my life would be a pit of boredom without his comedic stylings.

As he turns to leave he gazes at my desk to where a scarf is spilling out of my handbag.

“God, women’s handbags are always full of shit”

Kathryn knew there’d be a story there.  A fortune teller, working with gelato flavours.  That’s news.

I’m not Kathryn, and I don’t think it’s news, but my editor at the community newspaper sided with my step-sister.

So here I am, standing outside a nondescript store in a strip mall, half the windows boarded up, at 11am on a Tuesday morning.  The daughter of one of Kathryn’s Tennis buddies was meeting me there, along with her fiance, in less than one minute.  Unless they’re late.  It’s a shitty, rainy day.

But no, here comes Tami, with reluctant beau in teau.  Ready to have her destiny mapped out in roasted macadamia, or white chocolate, or oreo.  Tami is as sweet and bubbly as I remember.  Gooey sweet.  Her fiance, Travis, just looks tired.  And embarrassed.  Good.

Right on the dot of 11:03, Madame Chang opens the door, and ushers us inside.  The shop interior is best-described as “folksy”.  Wooden apothecary shelving and drawers line the walls, every surface is covered in jars, boxes, old papers.  Some kind of incense is adding smoke to the dust in the air.  Proudly displayed, right in the centre of the floor, is an ice-cream counter, full of little pottles of multicoloured… something.  Madame Chang, dressed for the part as rural witch.. doctor… ess, not ice-cream… parlor…. operator… smacks her hands together gleefully.

“Now” she says, “what do we have here?”  She rubs her hands together in anticipation.  Tami wades into the silence.

“I’m Tami.  I called you?  This is Travis.  He’s my fiance.”

Travis nods.  I’m not sure which part he’s agreeing to.

Tami is very… loud.  And she talks fast.  And she’s never still.  Her tiny, sneaker-shod, foot is constantly tapping a staccato to her commentary.  She shrugs and bounces endlessly, and her blond curls just seem to erupt, perenially, from the top of her tiny head.

She pipes up.

“I just know me and Travis are meant to be.  We’re getting married next weekend.  We’re star crossed lovers” she finishes dramatically.

Travis winces.  So do I.

There is silence again.

Madame Chang takes a breath.  A deep breath.  And begins to speak.

“I used to do chinese medicine.  Old medicine.  From China.  Natural.  From my family, going back long time.  I had many customers.  I see them.  I know what they are.  I know what they need.  I know all of the things, their things.”

She takes a pencil from behind her ear.  Actually it’s not a pencil, it’s a piece of cinnamon bark.  And gestures, poking it at each of us in turn.

“I see you.  I know you.  I know what you need.”

She looks at us over her glasses, all three of us, clumped uncomfortably on her floor.  She frowns.

“But now nobody come.  Nobody want herb that taste bad that make you good.  Nobody want feel little bad now but plenty good later.  Everybody want feel good now and good later.”

She reveals the ice-cream counter that we already know is there.  She beams proudly, her red-stained lips shrinking then spreading across her face.

“So now ice-cream.  Everybody like ice-cream.”  She states this like it’s perfectly obvious.  I suppose it is.

“Feel good now, feel good later, everybody win.”

“You make…. ice-cream” I start, uncertain about where we’re going with this.  My pencil hovers, waiting for me to give it something… substantial… to write.

“You make… ice-cream.  And it… Fixes… People…”

I’ve got to have missed something, surely.

“Yes” she confirms.  Sagely.

“I make ice-cream.  No milk.  Dairy free.”  She winks at me.  “I see you.  I see you flavour.  I know your future.”

She slaps Travis on the back.  A big bloke, and yet the slap projects him forward a couple of steps.

“I see you flavour!” she cackles up at him.

“You flavour Pineapple!  Very fresh.  Very strong.  You very active, go long way.  Good companions Lime, Coconut, even Caramel.  Sweet, to balance you strong flavour.  Not get lost.”

“I’m sweet!” Tami bounds into the conversation, which immediately starts to feel cramped.  She draws Madame Chang’s steel-trap gaze.

“Yes…” she begins thoughtfully, measuredly.

She gestures at me, then draws me closer, into her confidence.  Into her clutches.

“She…” Madame Chang gestures again, the jade beads in her hair-comb clacking ominously.

“You…”  She points a bony finger at Tami.

“You no good.  You too sweet.  You bubblegum.  Whoever heard of Pineapple Bubblegum?  You no work”  she shakes her head.

“No future.  I finished.  You go now.”

She slumps into a chair, gathers her voluminous sleeves, touches a hand to her forehead.

The little shop resounds with the silence.  Tami is opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish.  A popping noise comes out, but nothing else.  Travis, his expression unchanged, leave a $50 on the counter, secures it with a jar full of blue plastic spoons, collects his stunned bride-to-be.  Opens the front door, guides Tami through it, and it closes behind him with a soft thump, cutting off the fresh air I’m tempted to gulp.

I’m standing in the middle of the shop, pencil held above blank notebook, thinking I should probably do something.

Madame Chang looks up, squinting at me in the late afternoon sunlight.  I chance a quick glance at my watch, which says 5:15.  I’m astonished.  Surely we’ve been here for less than ten minutes.

Her scowl fixes on me, and on my pad and pencil.

“Ah,” she nods.  “You from the Paper.  You interview me.”  She sighs.

“Another day.  Another time.  I’m too tired.”

She contemplates me over the top of her tiny glasses, and sadness washes her face, then sympathy, resignation.

“You don’t believe.  I know, but you will.”

She sighs again, dragging her aged frame upwards.  Fumbling with her sleeves, she turns to the back of the shop.  I guess I’m dismissed then.  I start turning my own tired body to the door.

And find Madame Changs fleshless hand clasping my wrist.

“I’m very sorry, my dear.  Here.”   She hands me the tiny pottle that appears.  “You will need this.”

And with that I am dismissed.  Madame Chang has disappeared into the late afternoon shadows.

Once upon a time there was man. Bob was his name. His job was the Lucky Dip at all the country Shows, all the little packages wrapped spotty pink for, starry blue for. Travelling with the show people he drove alone, his rattling Austin Cambridge, two-toned green, pulling the little covered trailer where he lived with the supplies.

Bob never knew what was in the packages. Prewrapped, they were, in starry blue. In spotted pink. The Boss showed up at the end of every Show, topping up the Lucky Dip supplies, collecting the money, doling out Bob’s pay.

Sometimes he saw the paper trampled on the ground.

His favourite time of day was early morning, the sun just arriving and the crowds not yet. When he put on his striped bow tie. His white shirt fresh pressed from under the mattress. Filled the stripy bags, pink for, blue for.

Every day. Every day. Same walk around the other stalls, past the laughing Clowns who sometimes smiled at him and sometimes sneered. Past the Test your Strength stand, listening for the sound of the bell that never came. Past the shooting gallery where the ducks, cheeky, waved at him covertly. Past fairy floss and ring toss.

One day, there was a new stall.

One day, his bow tie straight and shiny, his hair dark and stiff, there was a new stall, tucked between fairy floss and ring toss. Narrow and quite dark, no colour, just a flap of a door and a sign above. “Seeing is Believing,” it said.

He wanted, wanted to stop and see but the kiddies clamoured and his bags, blue and pink, were still full.

“Lucky Dip! Lucky Dip,” he cried as he looked back.

Because of that, that dark new stall, he could not sleep. Next morning, when the sun was just arriving, his white shirt was wrinkled, his bow tie dulled and his hair too pale and soft.

“Seeing is Believing,” the sign told him all day. But the kiddies clamoured and his stripy bags were too full.

He wanted to stop.

He wanted to stop and see.

The next day. And the next day and the next his shirt was more wrinkled, his hair softer still, his bow tie dulled and drooping.

He did not sleep

“Seeing is Believing,” the sign said and the kiddies clamoured and his bags were too full.

The morning arrived. The morning of the last day came and the clowns sneered at his faded tie, his floppy hair and the shooting range ducks looked away.

Until finally, he went to see what he believed.

The stall was gone.

Nothing left all but a square of pale, dead grass, a small scrap of the sign above the door.

“See,” it said, in neat black letters.

He picked it up, put it in his pocket and went to fill his lucky dip bags.

She’s uncontrived unconventional. She wears black tracksuit pants with an elasticated waist and ribbed elasticated ankle bands. She never wears shoes and her feet are hard and dark like horses’ hooves. Her 11 year old daughter tells me that mum gardens all through the night which explains why her feet look like they’ve come from under the ground – grown from somewhere near the bamboo or hibiscus. There are no allocated bedrooms for her eight kids. They camp on couches, in corners, behind doors. Her daughter can sleep with people coming and going, with drug deals taking place in the lounge room, with a cat asleep on her face, outside or in the bathroom if she has to when the fighting gets too bad. Her 12 year old disabled son sits nude and smiling in the driveway, escaping sometimes to wander alone around the dark streets of the neighbourhood.

She’s the one who shuffles in with the cheap store bought cake in a brown paper bag to the primary school sports’ carnival and then leaves before she can watch her daughter win her race. She’s got a laugh that’s coarse and unapologetic and she sweats. Through every season she gleams like she’s emerged from the river. Once maybe she was considered attractive, possibly even stunning; now she wears scars from the bottles and bricks that have been thrown at her over the years. But even with sandpaper skin and tired pinned eyes, and perhaps because of it, she’s a character who intrigues, both fascinating and terrifying.