My First Encounter With Valerie
When my family landed on the shores of Tasmania in 1968 we were sent
into varied states of shock from which I don’t think we ever fully
recovered. The violent upheaval of leaving all of our friends and
extended family behind forever and moving to a foreign country on the
far side of the planet left deep scars on all of us in a trickle-down
effect, from oldest to youngest, as we each tried to cope with, and
acclimatise to these bizarre new surroundings and the strange
inhabitants who we now found ourselves living amongst. My own response
to this inexplicable, completely alien new environment, as a sensitive
ten-year-old, was, as I now realise, to sink into a trough of depression
that slowly gouged its way through my psyche and which took decades to
slowly clamber out of. This state of mind set the scene for the rest of
my childhood and teenage years and became the unrelenting backdrop to my
family’s terrifyingly rapid devolution into total dysfunction and
squalor.
For the first few months I couldn’t understand what the other children at the primary school were saying to me: they spoke a kind of English, but their accents were so broad that they might as well have spoken in Swahili. One day, a boy my age came running up to me in the playground; he stood in front of me with his hands on his hips. He said something which I couldn’t understand and when I asked him to repeat what he’d said he punched me in the face and casually walked away. I spent only a year at this school, and as soon as I turned eleven I moved up to Claremont High School, which was stranger and scarier.
In February of 1969, in my first week at Claremont High School, I saw Valerie – although, strictly speaking, I smelled her before I saw her. A hideous waft of swamp water and old biscuits blasted around the corner of the school hall; kids ran from it, giving it a wide berth. Then, two girls – Valerie’s patient, ever-present acolytes, as it turned out – emerged from around the corner, each flanking an enormous figure – it was Valerie, herself. She moved awkwardly, with exaggerated rolls of her shoulders and torso. She was enormously fat and her big head was topped with red hair, which was screwed into pigtails on both temples. She had two walking sticks (the kind that have elbow supports) and she used these to help heft her forward as she trundled, agonisingly slowly, across the asphalt. The two girls with her seemed oblivious to the rank odour that shrouded them, and they happily chatted to Valerie. I then noticed what should have been obvious from the start: Valerie had no legs. Well, that is she had legs, but they were made of plastic, or perhaps they were wood. These pretend legs were evidently fastened to her at mid-thigh, just below her school uniform skirt. As she passed me I could hear the creak and groan of invisible rivets and hinges. I watched, fascinated, as the odd trio continued walking off behind the library.
Several days later someone told me the story of Valerie. One morning, a year before, she had been hurrying to school and had attempted to cross a railway line in front of an oncoming train. She had slipped and fallen and the train had taken away both of her legs. Around the school she was known as either ‘Hop-Along Valerie’, or ‘Stinky Val’.
For the first few months I couldn’t understand what the other children at the primary school were saying to me: they spoke a kind of English, but their accents were so broad that they might as well have spoken in Swahili. One day, a boy my age came running up to me in the playground; he stood in front of me with his hands on his hips. He said something which I couldn’t understand and when I asked him to repeat what he’d said he punched me in the face and casually walked away. I spent only a year at this school, and as soon as I turned eleven I moved up to Claremont High School, which was stranger and scarier.
In February of 1969, in my first week at Claremont High School, I saw Valerie – although, strictly speaking, I smelled her before I saw her. A hideous waft of swamp water and old biscuits blasted around the corner of the school hall; kids ran from it, giving it a wide berth. Then, two girls – Valerie’s patient, ever-present acolytes, as it turned out – emerged from around the corner, each flanking an enormous figure – it was Valerie, herself. She moved awkwardly, with exaggerated rolls of her shoulders and torso. She was enormously fat and her big head was topped with red hair, which was screwed into pigtails on both temples. She had two walking sticks (the kind that have elbow supports) and she used these to help heft her forward as she trundled, agonisingly slowly, across the asphalt. The two girls with her seemed oblivious to the rank odour that shrouded them, and they happily chatted to Valerie. I then noticed what should have been obvious from the start: Valerie had no legs. Well, that is she had legs, but they were made of plastic, or perhaps they were wood. These pretend legs were evidently fastened to her at mid-thigh, just below her school uniform skirt. As she passed me I could hear the creak and groan of invisible rivets and hinges. I watched, fascinated, as the odd trio continued walking off behind the library.
Several days later someone told me the story of Valerie. One morning, a year before, she had been hurrying to school and had attempted to cross a railway line in front of an oncoming train. She had slipped and fallen and the train had taken away both of her legs. Around the school she was known as either ‘Hop-Along Valerie’, or ‘Stinky Val’.
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