Songs My Mother Taught Me; A Collection Of Short Stories

Frank

(Note; in Australia a ranch is called a station)

You know, when you sit and look back over your life, it's impossible to view it in a linear fashion. Memories and characters leap out at you as you cast your mind backwards, some more clear than others.

For example; I clearly remember spittin' Joe, the raggedy old man whose back was so curled that it made you wince to look at it, but who dad used to tell us was the best damn sheep shearer in all Australia. He used to turn up once a year at just the right time, like he had a sixth sense for it. He'd turn up, shear the sheep, take his money then head off again until next year. No one could remember why he was called Spittin' Joe but somehow it never seemed quite right to call him just Joe.

Yeah, I remember Spittin' Joe alright. Yet I can't remember the name or face of the teacher I had at the little outback school- even though I saw her almost every day for three years of my life.

Maybe I'll ask Maggie when she visits later.

Or, maybe I won't.

When you're dying nobody wants to talk about things like names of your old teachers, no matter how much you want to remember.

The other problem with memories is that the further back you go, the more difficult it is to know what you actually remember and what you've just been told so many times that you think you remember it. I spent years telling the story of the time my little brother Jimmy fell down a ditch, and began screaming that he was drowning in about 3 inches of water, having such a huge tantrum that no one could lift him out- only for Dad to overhear me telling it one day and correcting me. Turns out I wasn't even there that day, I'd just heard the damn story so many times that my mind had turned it into a clear memory, fresh and funny as anything.

So memories are funny things. Even though you can't trust them, they're the most important thing in your life. They're the only thing you got left at the end, trust me, I know better than anyone. More and more as the end gets closer, I find myself looking back. I suppose that's what happens when you can't look forward anymore.

But first memory is so clear that I have good reason to think that it's accurate. It was in the days where I shared a bed with my sisters, Karrie and Jossie. I can't have been more than 4 years old at the time. I remember waking up between them, glancing from one sleeping face to the other, before making an escape and crawling carefully backwards until I could slide from the bottom of the bed. No one else was awake. Being quite the opportunist, even then, I pulled on my leather shoes- leaving the buckle that required nimble fingers undone, of course- and scuffed my way down to the yard, holding the shoes on my feet by bunching my toes tightly.

Now I do know that the sight that greeting me may be exaggerated in memory, I'm sure it wasn't the miles and miles of a snowy winter wonderland that my mind has produced... But it was definitely snow and it was the only time in my childhood that it ever snowed on the ranch.

After several moments prancing in delight, kicking at the snow and picking it up, watching in amazement as I squeezed a handful of it and it melted to water; I raised my face and held out my tongue to catch a flake. It landed, stayed for a millisecond, then dissolved on the heat of my tongue.

I raised my face again, anticipating the next one. And again and again as the fat flakes drifted slowly around me.

And you know, the magic of it, the anticipation and wonder as I stood there in my nightshirt and unbuckled shoes was just as good as any other moment I ever had in 74 years that followed.

****

Elgar Huggins, known universally as Hug, was one of five men that dad employed permanently on the station. The rest were drifters, men who went from station to station, wandering their way across Australia, sleeping in barns and being paid for their work in meals. When I was growing up this seemed to me like the most adventurous, wonderful life imaginable and perhaps it's a path I would've taken myself, if Mum hadn't ran off with one of these blokes when I was 13. That put me off the whole idea.