Gina, our ship on legs..

Mid-autumn and the pollen's lying beneath the old tree at school once again. Yesterday I watched three Grade 1 girls scooping it up with little sticks on the wall of bricks and tiles that runs around the trunk. The story I wrote a few years ago about Gina is reprised here from a yellowed page of The Age.

Pollen dust covers the ramp and steps in the mornings. A fine yellow carpet that floats and settles near the door of the classroom. Dried and warm like sweet grass-seed, the smell carries me to the bush and the days of Gina.

We kept her in a paddock that lay across the road from home. A dusky brown heifer with the island of Tasmania in a splash of white across her muzzle. There had been others before her. Clarabelle first, then Mammy and Velvet, but Gina was the queen. Her walk set her apart. An unhurried stepping, like a ship on legs. Mum kept a diary, a small brown book where she marked our milestones such as baptisms, when we started school or who got whooping cough. Gina’s doings were listed there as well, under C for cow. La Lolla, Dad named her, but we called her Gina.

I was 10 when I began walking across by myself to get her. I wore Dad’s gumboots and carried a stick. I felt brave then, ready to hit a snake or ward off a magpie. Sometimes she’d be standing close to the gate just waiting, staring at the bowlers on the smooth square greens on the opposite side of the fence. Other days she’d be lying among the tussocks and I’d wander the maze of paths that ran towards the football ground, calling until I found her. She’d lead the way back, rocking her weight in even time along the tracks to home.

We milked her in the shed, on a concrete patch in the corner where Dad had built a bail. I had the morning shift and when it was cold I watched as steam poured from her nostrils and left watery drops on the bristles near her mouth. I bolted the plank in behind her ear, caught her tail on the nail above and tied back her leg with the cord. Each milking we gave her a handful of hay and filled her bucket with water. While she ate or drank or just stood mashing her cud, I washed the swollen udder that hung like a bag of puffy fingers below her belly. I leant against her and listened to the rumble and gurgle of milk running like a river inside. The hair just above her udder was softer and there was a secret space between the bag and her leg, a little warm pouch where my hand fitted perfectly. She’d give a sudden kick and I’d remember the milking. With the bucket held between my knees I tilted it towards the wall and started. Two pin-straight lines hit the tin and within minutes a creamy froth rose up the sides and the bucket felt warm and heavy against my legs.

Gina made milk and calves. Every year we took her to visit the bull at Davies’ farm. It was a two-mile walk we called The Long March. Dad drove the car at walking pace while we crouched down low in the back seat and held the rope that was looped round her neck. People slowed and watched as the little procession moved through the streets, past the town hall and on to the highway. “Where’s the circus?” or “Get a horse!” they yelled. We were ashamed. Dad wasn’t; he just laughed and idled the car along, his arm angled like a paddle out the window.

We left her at the farm in the front paddock where the black bull stood watching, then, after a week, returned to bring her home. She didn’t remember us. She wanted to stay. We jammed the rope in the window and held on with all our might, but as the car started up so did the bull. All along the dirt road we heard him, a hoarse angry bellowing backed by a chorus of mooing. It wasn’t until the highway that the air quietened, Gina stopped pulling against the rope and it was safe to pat her through the window. The car dropped into second gear as she padded the gravel beside the bitumen and I listened to the rhythm in her hooves.

The arrival of a calf each year was recorded in Mum’s tiny script. “On July 16th ’66, to Gina and Horace another little bull calf. Both doing fine.” Motherhood was a brief experience, however, and after a week the farmer would come and take it away. We watched the splay-footed creature calling out from the back of the ute and when I lay in bed at night I heard Gina’s sore and lonely cries carrying across the road like a broken trumpet.

In my last year at school she died. My brother found her lying by the gate with her feet sideways in the air, a piece of fence wire dangling from her mouth. Maybe she knew what was coming. The following month the bowling club expanded and her paddock became a car park. She was the last cow we kept. The small country that lay across the road became the land I never visited.

Until this year and this tree. The tree that towers over the portable classroom where I teach. The one that drops seeds and pollen dust that crisps in the sun and scents the air with a smell like hay. The one that brings back the queen and her country again.

Remembering Kevin

Remembering Kevin

While I was reheating some spaghetti for lunch today, I began thinking about Kevin, a friend of my husband. The two of them used to teach together. Kevin was single and lived in a share house in Oakleigh. He came for dinner a few times when the kids were little. What I remember most from those nights was the way he played with them –he always went a bit crazy in the sense that some people who don’t know how to behave go overboard and excite an energy in kids that makes them loud and wild.

On the first evening he was here, after the boys had finally calmed down and gone off to bed Kevin spoke about his childhood. Like me he’d grown up in a large Catholic family with a number of siblings in each bedroom and where religion played a big part in daily life. Unlike me though, his memories of those days were mostly miserable. With 14 kids in his family- 5 more than in mine - Kevin said he never felt there was enough of anything to go round. That included love. I got the sense from listening to him that although he lived in a crowded house his childhood wasn’t much different to an orphan’s.

One Sunday sometime after we’d gotten to know him, we went to his place for lunch. The kids played out in the backyard while we sat in the kitchen and had a drink before eating. We’d brought a bottle of wine and Kevin produced 3 vegemite glasses which was fine. What I couldn’t get my head around however, was the table cloth. It was one of his sheets. The stripy flannelette kind that thins out after a few washes. The kind that carries little pills of fluff where it’s been worn away. As we sat there with him, all I could wonder was when he’d last used it. When he served up the meal- the empty bottle of Paul Newman Bolognese Sauce was on the sink beside the stove- I found I had no appetite. I had to force myself to take a few mouthfuls and drink the wine as slowly as I could.

When my husband turned 40 we had a party at home. Friends and family came and the house was alive with music and talk. Kevin arrived early in the evening but didn’t stay long. In fact he walked in the back door and passed through to the front before either of us had time to realize it. The gathering had simply overwhelmed him.

Beyond what I’ve written here, there’s not much more to say. I know before we’d met he’d been a Brother in an order in Western Australia and I also remember what my husband said -that he had no real idea about how to teach.

When he left the school at the end of the year and moved away from Melbourne it turned out to be the last we saw or heard from him. He gave no forwarding address and made no return visits. We lost touch.

In hindsight I feel ashamed I didn’t help him more but the truth is, I got tired of his company. Whenever he came round the past always came with him. It was like a bag of old stones he tipped open on the table. I wished for the day when he didn’t have his heaviness but that time never came. All I hope now in remembering him is that somewhere along the road he met someone who helped him carry the weight.

Farewell friend

"Irish author John McGahern has died in hospital in Dublin at the age of 71." The brief news item said that McGahern's death had followed a long battle with cancer. I was shocked when I read this, I'd hoped he'd live to be 100.
I first came to his work some years ago when a friend lent me a copy of Amongst Women. He told me I might find something in the story of a man facing death and the effect it has on his children that could help me understand the way my father's dying influenced me and my siblings. I was glad I did. Amongst Women took me into the story of a family where the father at times seemed the centre of the universe. It was territory I knew.
I was hungry for more of his writing. I found a short-story collection in the local library and here I discovered an Ireland where history happened to ordinary people. The Troubles were in the living rooms as well as in the pubs. I liked the way McGahern could see the worth of little scenes in people's lives. "He poured cream from a small white jug" seemed as important as any other event in the day.
I recommended his writing to others. One night I spoke with a Scottish friend and was happy to hear that, like me, when he got to the last page of That they may face the rising sun, he slowly shut the book, then reopened it and began it again.
I found an essay that McGahern wrote some years ago about the way he came to be a writer. He remembered the surprise of being able to borrow books from a neighbour's home not long after his mother had died. "There were few books in our house, and reading for pleasure was not approved of. It was thought to be dangerous, like pure laughter."
I read the last paragraph of the same article over and over to remind me of the way to write well. "Unless technique can take us to that clear mirror that is called style - the reflection of personality in language, everything having been removed from it that is not itself - the most perfect technique is as worthless as mere egotism. To reach that point we have to feel deeply and to think clearly in order to discover the right words."
I wish that I'd written to him, to thank him for his work. Ever since Amongst Women, I'd carried the idea of doing so.
Last year I travelled to Ireland with my two eldest sons. As we drove down lanes into the mid-west I thought of John McGahern. I knew it was his country by the shelter of trees and hedges thick with a mixture of greenery and light. I wondered if we might bump into him in a shop or if I'd recognize him walking down a road.
I have a photo of him, which I found on the internet, on the desktop of my computer. He's sitting in his kitchen wearing an old pullover, kettle gleaming on the stove, mug of tea on the wooden table in front of him, staring calmly out at the world. There's a soft smile on his face and when I look at that picture I feel as if I'm in the house of an old friend.


(this was originally published in The Age in April 2006)

travelling with my daughter

SHE’S BESIDE me at the wheel in tee-shirt and jeans, her hair pulled back off her face and tied in a bundle of braids, her mouth glossed with lip balm. It’s 10 in the morning and I’m travelling with my daughter on the road to Strahan following the Derwent as it spools up into the West coast …
Not far out of Hobart we pass through open farmland and small towns, and then the country becomes a still life as gum trees lining the road deepen into thick bush and the silence of forest. There’s ice in the gullies, a soft grey sky and low clouds that mist into the hills. Light rain falls. Sunshine into shadow into sunshine again. As we drive she sings along to a tape and brushes a jelly snake across the steering wheel in time to the music. The white Telstra purrs with her clear, sure voice.
Now and then a car or van passes but for most of the journey we have the road to ourselves. I write down the names of some of the waterways we’re passing. I tell her we have to say each word out loud and let the sound ripple though our heads before I can put it down. Black Bobs Rivulet, what’s a rivulet she asks and why only in Tassie? Bronte Lagoon, E-m-i-ly.. Char-lotte.... Scarlett and Raglan Creeks, make me a red jumper MUMMM…I can’t help laughing. She’s playing word tennis. When we pass over rivers - the Franklin, the Cardigan - the bridges are wide and underneath the roadway swift water the colour of tea streams by. High overhead an eagle is gliding. I watch its slow, heavy flight through the opening between the trees, see it dip as it reaches the mid-point above the road then rise and circle inside that space again. Welcome to the west.
We stop for lunch at Donaghy’s Lookout on a gravelled clearing beside the road and find a small track leading to the lookout point. A wild green forest covers the land as far as my eyes can see and I’m swept away by the thought of just being here. We’re part of all this beauty! The air’s so cold and we’re up so high that when I breathe I cough. I put my hands on the rail and feel ice on my skin. Someone’s left a message on the wood, a finger script in white crystals. LOVE IS THE ANSWER slopes across the ledge and away to the valley. I add the first word that comes to me when I read it. YES!
A large grey cat with eyes like yellow globes darts out from the undergrowth close to where we’re standing then disappears. Pussy gone w i l d she calls. We go back to the car and continue the trip. A bus heading south slides suddenly around a bend and for a moment I think we’re about to be pushed off the road. She steadies the wheel and then waves her hand calmly at the driver. I’m in awe of her confidence.
We reach Queenstown in the early afternoon. As we approach the old mining settlement, the road winds round and round a cluster of bare hills and then it’s a slow, careful descent into the town with the lunar landscape. Seeing the scarred grey earth when we arrive in the main street is like having shock therapy when you’d like a hug.
We laugh, imagining ourselves as Thelma and Louise on the freedom ride to where?
“Anywhere but here” she drawls and keeps on driving.
I think I’m 25.
A short time later we arrive in Strahan and park beside the Macquarie Harbour. A silky skein of water, deep, flat and glassy fills the basin of the Gordon river. We pick up pieces of huon pine and sassafras from the pine mill beside the gallery and the boy in the mill gives us directions to find the best views of the town. I notice his face reddening as he talks. She’s charmed him too. On our way back to the road she links her arm into mine and kisses me on the cheek. We reach the car, slip our seats back as far as they can go and listen to the water lapping at the pier.

(this originally appeared in Tasmanian Times February 2008)

afternoon friend..

I sit in the sunroom after a day at school. It's hot, the air is still. I can't read the newspaper - too much is required of my eyes and head to do that. But I want to look at something to take me away from things.

In the bookcase beside me, I pick out a hardback - Michael Palin's Full Circle and put it in my lap. Lovely man, Michael. I'd travel anywhere with him. The book falls open on a coloured double paged spread showing his journey around the Pacific. A sweep of blue ocean bordered by green countries, the map is dotted by a bright yelllow trail that indicates the route he took.

I study it all for a minute or so and as I''m doing this, over the top of the page a caterpillar appears and slides across the paper.

A tiger by colouring, an emperor by birth, I watch as the furry traveller pushes through midwest Canada, into the US and out to the Pacific - the prow of its head rising up and down like a listing ship rolling across the waves. A sea breeze seems to riffle the tip of its hairs as it journeys south, then reaches shore and glides overland into Bolivia.

Suddenly it stops.
At the end of the page and the edge of a world, the caterpillar pauses and peers over the side. The railing's steep and sharp. A moment passes before it drops off the map and lands on my knees.

As it steadies then grips the hem of my skirt , all I can feel is nothing but peace that a small, brave creature should choose me for company on this long, March day.

Meditation on mowing..

Meditation on mowing

As a child I lived opposite a bowling club. Every morning the gardener moved across the kitchen window cutting, rolling or watering the grass. Preparing the greens. The smoke from his cigarette floated above him like small grey signals coming out of his hat. I envied him. Nothing in the day except that green path and in the distance the Strezlecki ranges, a blue smudge on the horizon.

I loved being in the garden and in my last year at school, the back yard behind the shed became the quietest place on earth. Fruit trees, a vegetable patch, the chooks’ pen and me. In the afternoons when I finished milking the cow I stood there for a while by myself and wondered about things.

Now, half a lifetime later, I mow for meditation. Up and down, over and across I circuit the yard with the pad of a slow dance. When I first started I used to follow a pattern. I’d cut the grass in long straight lines winding back and forth from top to bottom and side to side until the grass had been cut, the yard clear, the job done. Then I branched out. I started making shapes like rectangles, squares, ovals and cricket pitches. I stopped thinking it was a chore and thought of it as something else. A release for the mind.

It’s like cutting the kid’s hair. Five different heads, thick, wispy, curly, straight and spiky. Whorls and crowns, cowlicks and fringes. When they were little I bought fine steel scissors and learnt to trim and shape. They sat on a chair in the kitchen or if it was fine we went outdoors. I knelt and stooped behind them. Snip comb snip as I listened to their chatter or told stories to keep them still. Fifteen years in the trade until they tired of my slowness and went off to hairdressers and I lost my job. I stopped cutting until I discovered the mower.

I push the machine under the ivy and remember the morning we found the puppies. Ten tiny bodies wriggling in the dark warmth and in the mother’s eyes a brightness that surprised me. I mow behind the tool shed and see the place where the kids found a blackbird’s nest. In the middle of some bougainvillea hanging over the back fence they propped up a ladder and took turns spying on the eggs. I notice too there’s a mixture of grasses to explore. A patch of baby tears by the bedroom windows, thin seedy blades under the clothesline and spongy thickness near the apricot tree.

I met the man from across the road when I started mowing. I watched in the beginning as he pushed the machine across the nature strip and rolled the mower over and over the lawn whilst his son waited for him on the driveway. Not many weeks later the boy took over the mowing and his father walked around and picked up twigs that had blown off the trees. He dropped them on the footpath or placed them in little heaps amongst the shrubs. It was then that I learnt he had Alzheimer’s disease. As the months went by I saw him often wandering by himself, sometimes in his pyjamas standing by the letter box. He didn’t know me any more. And then a gardening service appeared and the boy told me his dad had moved into a hostel.

The last place I mow is beneath the ash tree with its roots running all over the place like fingers groping up through the earth. The blades grind the tops of the wood with gashes and bruises and after that it’s finished. The lawns are done. I stand underneath the clothes line and watch the birds sifting and scattering. It’s then that I remember the girl who stood behind the shed in the afternoons with a question in her head. The answer’s always green.

kate cahill

mine

mine

In the afternoons she often had a nap. sometimes I'd lie beside her on the bed and touch the soft skin of her arm or rub my leg against her slippery stockings. After a while I heard the drop in her breathing as it went down, down down like a clock winding backwards on the pillow. For twenty minutes or so, Mum was all mine.

little pictures..

Little Pictures

During the first week of term 1, I’ve been testing the children in my Prep class using a computer program that’s designed to indicate a child’s general level of achievement at the start of school. The test, made up of a series of picture screens accompanied by questions on an audio, usually lasts about twenty minutes and is carried out one-to-one while the child’s parent or caregiver waits outside the classroom door.
It begins with a sample of handwriting.
Some are quick to do this. So confident with a pencil and piece of paper that before I’ve time to click their details on the screen they’ve already finished writing their name. A mix of capital and lower case letters spread across the page neatly like a row of carriages on a train, or perhaps a swish of sticks and circles that look like musical notes. I have to check to see if every letter of the child’s name is accounted for and whether the handwriting is clear to read before giving it a mark from 0-5. Sometimes children struggle to put anything down on the paper and when this happens I crouch beside their chair and encourage them to write whatever they can remember. Often thick strokes appear that remind me of fence posts being slowly hammered into the ground. One boy comes in holding a soft toy and I watch as he tucks the animal between his tummy and the table then picks up the pencil and grips it like a big stick before sliding the grey-lead so lightly across the paper that only a thread of colour can be seen. When he finishes he puts down the pencil, hugs his penguin and hands me the paper. I find his name on the screen, click the mouse and he stuns me a couple of minutes later by reading words, sentences and then a lengthy story about Cats.





Frigglejang. Denalty. Riotous. Enterprising. Observatory. Their eyes widen and they look at me sideways as they listen then pop their mouths open and repeat these words. I’m concentrating on picking up speech difficulties such as stammers
or lisps but at the same time find myself holding back laughter at the way each one responds. There are mumbles and whispers, shouts and giggles as they roll those sounds along their tongues and out into the air. It’s as if they’re retelling little jokes that they know make no sense. One girl tilts back and forth on her tiptoes as steady as a clock whilst she identifies each letter of the alphabet. I love the certainty in her voice and the surprise in her eyes when I hand her a pointer – a chopstick- to tap on the screen. She could be Degas’ Little Dancer as she leans forwards in the sunlight and tries so hard to match the words and pictures that appear in front of her eyes.


Rockets and puppies, ice-creams and fish. They count and match, add and take away. Michael laughs when the 5 and 10 cent coins appear and he hears “Jasmine wants to buy an apple. It costs 10 cents. Which coin should she use to buy it?” “Apples don’t cost 10 cents!” he cries and I tap the mouse and hope he’ll always be this confident with what he knows.

Each child goes as far as they can with the questions and then the program cuts out.
A thin green line glides across the screen to indicate the results have been archived. Later in the day, I’ll study the information and use it to build up the big picture of the range of ability within the class group. For now though, the little picture of each one standing beside me in the corner of the classroom is all the detail I need.