Uncle Molest

After having got over me discarding the snail without consideration of his wants, watching it sail across the garden and land somewhere amongst bushes, Daniel brought two bills and one letter from the letter box.  I told him “Thank you!” with a big smile, and animatedly received the mail from him.  He looked proud, and that gave me joy.

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I then picked Daniel up and carried him halfway down the driveway where I decided we would sit under the warm sun, and I would read the letter – it was from my sister Wendy, in Melbourne.  We wrote each other occasionally, and she rang fairly often.  She seemed to care for Daniel and me and it was sort of nice, but curious to me.  Again I labored mentally, trying to understand how she could possibly care about me when she did not know me.  From the orphanage to living with my aunty, to living with dad, we were never what I believed “sisters” to be.  Sisters giggle, play and go shopping together.  They swap clothes, talk about periods or not having any (I didn’t get mine until I was 19).  They talk deeply and on a level.  They feel they can reveal to each other, and I have never felt that way with Wendy.  I never told her I wanted to die, that I had just spent the last two hours crouched between parked cars, trying and trying for the guts to jump out and die, just die, I couldn’t take any more, I just wanted to die (at 15).  Between Wendy’s baggy clothes and my short tennis gear, let alone my concept of what it was to be female…

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I was once was getting ready to go out and as I tightened a belt around my grey-blue work skirt and work shirt, Wendy sneered, “You look like bloody Dolly Parton”.  I had developed breasts early, I was guilty of that, but to let them be seen in form female, this just added to the offence, in Wendy’s eyes (I felt).  It was hard enough walking past dad without him looking at me in that way men do, that make you uncomfortable, but when my sister said that, I just wanted to cut my breasts off and say, “I wasn’t trying to pronounce my breasts, actually, I was putting a belt on because it ‘makes’ the outfit – it divides the upper and lower nicely.  I hate them sticking out.  I’m sorry they’re big.  I’m sorry everyone – I’m sorry!”  To this very day I have not ever felt attractive, being female.  I have felt guilty.

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When I ‘d fled dad’s domain at 17, and Wendy had escaped so much sooner – as within dad’s walls we were “different people” coping our own way; so we continued beyond.  She wasn’t aware dad wrote me hate mail, telling me I would end up in a gutter with a needle up my arm, that I was headed for self-destruction and nothingness – continuing his dialect the only way he could now I was physically no longer there, intent on destroying my already bludgeoned ego for reasons I sobbed to understand.  I knew he did not write Wendy same when she left his house.  But for some reason after a day’s work dad gathered paper, a pen, undoubtedly a few beers, and focused on hating me, inking into the page his vitriol.  And after several (once 11) pages, so often repetitive (did he not realize?) he would lick the envelope to seal his continuation of abuse of me, purchase a stamp and drop the letter into a letterbox, knowing that the next day, or following, I would come home from work and be confronted, again, by his hate of me.  I wondered if it gave him a hard-on – to still affect me from afar.

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As I grew up, dad constantly said I was “the most like yer Mother” – in fact, all of our relatives did.  I felt special by this.  I had only had Mum in my life for six years before her suicide, while my eldest sister had her for 12, yet I was the greatest resemblance of her in manner, looks and idiosyncrasy. “Gee she’s like Krystyna, isn’t she?” I remember Uncle Kevin (RIP) once (again) saying to dad, and for a few moments I had my father’s attention and – love? – or something – while he looked at me, and I at him, before I could hold the older man’s gaze no longer, and looked away.  And dad agreed that, yeah, I was.

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Uncle Kevin, a bachelor, was always good to us four girls.  Such a good, kind uncle.  At Christmases, at a loss of what to get a 7yo (youngest), let alone a 13yo (oldest); or a 9yo let alone a 15yo, and so on, he always gave us four girls the same thing each.  We learned quickly, and would tear into our package to be the first to discover what it was – rather than be the one opening the gift, already knowing what it would be.  Uncle Kevin gave me my Barbie doll, which I treasure to this day.

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I got a good feeling from Uncle Kevin, always, when he visited – unlike Uncle Porter.  When I was married and caravanning across Australia with my husband, we detoured to visit my Uncle Porter at his rural property.  When I stepped out of the car as he strode up his dirt driveway, he took one look at me before saying to my husband, “Geez she’s hot, just like her mother”.  I felt an avalanche of confusion implode within.   There was no, ‘Hello niece; it’s been years…’  Uncle Porter had completely overlooked me, and having passed over my physical being, he addressed my husband, David.  David of course had never met Mum and so couldn’t agree or not, so he brushed off the remark and shook Uncle Porter’s hand.  Uncle Porter then turned to me and demanded a nice big hug.  Uncle Porter had done damage to females in the family reach, I later discovered.  But I couldn’t take back that hug.

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In Cottesloe, Western Australia, on the warm concrete driveway of the block of flats, I settled into the embrace of the sunshine, Daniel settled into my embrace, and I opened the letter.  I kissed Daniel on the top of his head.  I could swear his shiny brown locks were threads of silk itself, woven by fairies overnight, tending their illustrious garden of natural beauty.  As the ocean rumbled afar, beyond our ears but still tangible in the salt of the air, I began reading Wendy’s letter.

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Dear Noeleen

I can’t sleep (or do my essay!) for thinking about your situation.  I’ll come straight to the point and tell you my idea.  Come to Melbourne.

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Copyright Noeleen&Daniel 50/50