Parental 'Betrayal' in Queenstown, Tasmania
In 1969 my father decided to drive the family, clockwise,
around Tasmania. We had emigrated there from the UK the previous year. I had
just turned eleven. Much of this road trip remains a blur, while a few
scarifying moments have been seared into my brain.
The trip was made in a battered, rusty old, red Volkswagen van which my father had purchased second-hand that same year. Apart from the windshield and the front-passenger side-windows, there were no other windows in the van. Apart from the front bench-seat, for my father and mother, there were no other seats in the van: the back had been gutted, and was essentially just a metal box in which the five of us kids swarmed, unsecured. Had we been hit by another car on the journey we would have all pinballed around inside the metal shell, our heads shattering like eggs.
Both my mother and my father smoked for the entire trip. They were reluctant to open their side windows, due to the cold, so there was a permanent drift of blue-grey smoke that filled the back of the van in a heavy fog. We kids must have smoked several packets each by the end of the journey.
The trip did not take in the then heavily forested south-west region of the island as there were then not many roads that allowed that sort of free access through the area. Instead, we headed straight for the centre of the land mass and then veered to the left to continue up the coast to Launceston, and then back down the eastern coast to Hobart, where we lived in one of its dreary suburbs.
Only a few moments come back to me now: I remember gazing at a dinky little sandstone bridge in Richmond and pondering how it had come to be named the ‘Most Haunted Bridge in Tasmania’ – which begged the question: How many haunted bridges did the state possess? For some reason I also remember us driving through Huon Vale, home of the Tasmanian orchard industry, and wondering where were all the apple trees.
In Zeehan we all piled out of the van to stretch our legs and get orange juice at a local shop. There was a raging river in full flow and we all stood on the road bridge to watch it. It was a peculiar river. The water didn’t look like water. It smelled strange – burnt and tangy. Although it travelled very fast, it looked thick and sludgy. It was metallic. It was like a roaring cascade of mercury. This was the first time I had seen pollution at first hand and it rather filled me with dismay that such an enormous element had been willfully broken. When we reached Queenstown things became worse.
We had been driving for some time through some of the most barren landscape I had ever seen – at least it appeared so, from what could be glimpsed over my parents’ smoke-wreathed shoulders. The road wended around rocky outcrops and ridges and bald valleys. There was no evidence of plant life whatsoever: not a tree, or a bush, or a weed, or a blade of grass evident, anywhere, as far as the eye could see, in any direction. There were just miles and miles of dead, purplish rock. There were no birds; there were, presumably, no animals either. It was as though we had been transported to a dead planet. These moonrocks evoked pain and suffering; they suddenly made me think of my poor teeth, which at the time were in fairly urgent need of dentist attention. We were on the edge of Queenstown, which had for many decades been a silver-mining town. The air pollution associated with the accompanying smelting had killed every skerrick of vegetation. Nothing now remained.
We stopped in the town centre for a toilet break. A local store was open and my parents went in – probably for cigarettes. My two sisters took each other to the Ladies, and I went into the Gents. Having finished at the urinal, I had just stepped off the little raised platform when I heard a shuffling at the entrance. Three boys stood in the doorway: two were my age, and the third was about thirteen. One of the younger boys was cross-eyed. The faces of all three were smudged with dirt. The older boy did all the talking, while his young acolytes stood on either side of him, grinning inanely.
“What are you doing in here?” he demanded.
“I had to go to the toilet,” I meekly replied. I busied myself washing my hands in the icy water from a tap over a cracked porcelain basin. I hoped that the boys would leave, or at least that they would step away from the door to allow me to exit.
“Did you shit yourself?” demanded the older boy. I ignored this. “I bet you shit your undies,” he continued. The cross-eyed kid laughed. There was no paper towel dispenser, so I busied myself shaking the water off my hands into the basin. But now I had to turn and face them in order to leave the reeking concrete block.
“Is that your mum and dad out there?” the older boy asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, we’ve just been talking to your mum and dad. They said that you always shit your undies. They told us you always have a shit-stripe on your pants.” I was horrified to hear this; and whilst I couldn’t remember ever having a ‘shit-stripe’ on my underwear, I recognised that it was in the bounds of possibility. I was then even more horrified to think that my parents may indeed have had this conversation with these three inbred monsters.
“Your mum and dad said they don’t like you,” continued the dough-faced brat. “They said you are a little cunt. Yes, they did - a real little cunt, they said.” I felt my face redden. I had heard this word before, since arriving on these shores, and I had seen it written on the walls of various select venues. I didn’t know what it meant yet, but I knew it was one of the worst words that anyone could say. And the possibility that my parents had said it of me filled me with horror. An image shot through my mind of the pair of them out there in the carpark, talking about me, and laughing with this little band of urchins. I felt a pang of misery, like a skewer in my heart, at the thought of this parental betrayal. My father now appeared in the doorway and the boys hurried away. I made my way back to the van, stealing glances at my mother, who had suddenly become a stranger.
The trip was made in a battered, rusty old, red Volkswagen van which my father had purchased second-hand that same year. Apart from the windshield and the front-passenger side-windows, there were no other windows in the van. Apart from the front bench-seat, for my father and mother, there were no other seats in the van: the back had been gutted, and was essentially just a metal box in which the five of us kids swarmed, unsecured. Had we been hit by another car on the journey we would have all pinballed around inside the metal shell, our heads shattering like eggs.
Both my mother and my father smoked for the entire trip. They were reluctant to open their side windows, due to the cold, so there was a permanent drift of blue-grey smoke that filled the back of the van in a heavy fog. We kids must have smoked several packets each by the end of the journey.
The trip did not take in the then heavily forested south-west region of the island as there were then not many roads that allowed that sort of free access through the area. Instead, we headed straight for the centre of the land mass and then veered to the left to continue up the coast to Launceston, and then back down the eastern coast to Hobart, where we lived in one of its dreary suburbs.
Only a few moments come back to me now: I remember gazing at a dinky little sandstone bridge in Richmond and pondering how it had come to be named the ‘Most Haunted Bridge in Tasmania’ – which begged the question: How many haunted bridges did the state possess? For some reason I also remember us driving through Huon Vale, home of the Tasmanian orchard industry, and wondering where were all the apple trees.
In Zeehan we all piled out of the van to stretch our legs and get orange juice at a local shop. There was a raging river in full flow and we all stood on the road bridge to watch it. It was a peculiar river. The water didn’t look like water. It smelled strange – burnt and tangy. Although it travelled very fast, it looked thick and sludgy. It was metallic. It was like a roaring cascade of mercury. This was the first time I had seen pollution at first hand and it rather filled me with dismay that such an enormous element had been willfully broken. When we reached Queenstown things became worse.
We had been driving for some time through some of the most barren landscape I had ever seen – at least it appeared so, from what could be glimpsed over my parents’ smoke-wreathed shoulders. The road wended around rocky outcrops and ridges and bald valleys. There was no evidence of plant life whatsoever: not a tree, or a bush, or a weed, or a blade of grass evident, anywhere, as far as the eye could see, in any direction. There were just miles and miles of dead, purplish rock. There were no birds; there were, presumably, no animals either. It was as though we had been transported to a dead planet. These moonrocks evoked pain and suffering; they suddenly made me think of my poor teeth, which at the time were in fairly urgent need of dentist attention. We were on the edge of Queenstown, which had for many decades been a silver-mining town. The air pollution associated with the accompanying smelting had killed every skerrick of vegetation. Nothing now remained.
We stopped in the town centre for a toilet break. A local store was open and my parents went in – probably for cigarettes. My two sisters took each other to the Ladies, and I went into the Gents. Having finished at the urinal, I had just stepped off the little raised platform when I heard a shuffling at the entrance. Three boys stood in the doorway: two were my age, and the third was about thirteen. One of the younger boys was cross-eyed. The faces of all three were smudged with dirt. The older boy did all the talking, while his young acolytes stood on either side of him, grinning inanely.
“What are you doing in here?” he demanded.
“I had to go to the toilet,” I meekly replied. I busied myself washing my hands in the icy water from a tap over a cracked porcelain basin. I hoped that the boys would leave, or at least that they would step away from the door to allow me to exit.
“Did you shit yourself?” demanded the older boy. I ignored this. “I bet you shit your undies,” he continued. The cross-eyed kid laughed. There was no paper towel dispenser, so I busied myself shaking the water off my hands into the basin. But now I had to turn and face them in order to leave the reeking concrete block.
“Is that your mum and dad out there?” the older boy asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, we’ve just been talking to your mum and dad. They said that you always shit your undies. They told us you always have a shit-stripe on your pants.” I was horrified to hear this; and whilst I couldn’t remember ever having a ‘shit-stripe’ on my underwear, I recognised that it was in the bounds of possibility. I was then even more horrified to think that my parents may indeed have had this conversation with these three inbred monsters.
“Your mum and dad said they don’t like you,” continued the dough-faced brat. “They said you are a little cunt. Yes, they did - a real little cunt, they said.” I felt my face redden. I had heard this word before, since arriving on these shores, and I had seen it written on the walls of various select venues. I didn’t know what it meant yet, but I knew it was one of the worst words that anyone could say. And the possibility that my parents had said it of me filled me with horror. An image shot through my mind of the pair of them out there in the carpark, talking about me, and laughing with this little band of urchins. I felt a pang of misery, like a skewer in my heart, at the thought of this parental betrayal. My father now appeared in the doorway and the boys hurried away. I made my way back to the van, stealing glances at my mother, who had suddenly become a stranger.
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