:: Pushy Women by Catherine Deveny

Here is the story I read today at Catherine Deveny’s event Pushy Women. It’s factional, in that it is based on fact but some bits may have got lost in translation over the very many years since this happened.

Thanks to Catherine Deveny for inviting me to be part of her event. There were so many SUPER funny and clever ladies to listen to. What an ace afternoon!  Lally Katz and Karen Pickering were my super-dooper faves, but really, it’s hard to call it because everyone was rad! I’m always so impressed when people take the time to create interesting stuff for us to share in. Thank you DEV! Thank you Bev, Van, Kate, Gen & Anne. (And Rachel S and Pip C!)

Make sure you support interesting stuff like this in your community, won’t you?

x Pip

Here is my #pushywomen story…

This story starts on a Saturday when I was about 7. I lay on the floor in front of Donnie Sutherland’s Sounds Unlimited scooping fizzy delight out of a Sherbet Fountain lolly. My Mum had just announced that we’d be going to visit her friend Kerry after lunch.

This was a far less delightful prospect. Not only did I want to keep watching Sounds, I also wanted to eat as many sherbet fountains as possible, write in my lock up diary and read some books about horses. Dang.

Kerry and her husband Tony owned a nursing home. I KNOW, right? The perfect place for a 7-year-old girl. Luckily they didn’t live IN the nursing home.  Instead they lived right next door in a 70s brick veneer, the type with big windows and flowery curtains and extremely woolly carpet.

A long driveway snaked in a ‘U’ shape, alongside Kerry’s house, down to a huge red brick building at the bottom of the hill and then back up again to the road. My mum said the red brick building was some kind of private hospital. I know, right? Sandwiched between a nursing home AND a hospital? Kerry’s place was totally ROCK! Let’s go there now!

I didn’t feel like going there that day. Visiting my Mum’s friends was a bit boring. Still, as much as I wanted to read My Friend Flicka all afternoon, staying home probably meant being pestered by my brother.  Those inappropriately named handy wrist burny moves.  The tiny sibling pinches. The random tea towel flicks. Those were not the kind of Saturday afternoon fun I was after. Nope. Kerry’s suddenly seemed like a really good idea. I. WAS. IN.

Kerry had two kids. I can’t even remember their names because they were a bit older than me and we didn’t really hang out by choice. They were the kind of friends you make when your Mums are chortling in the kitchen over pate and Pimms and you are shuffling your feet on the seagrass matting in the family room, hoping no one asks you to play Kerplunk.

Thankfully today was Kerplunk-free. Kerry’s kids were at choir or jazz ballet or scouts with Tony and I was encouraged as far away from the Pimms fuelled chortling as possible with the irresistible offer of a glass of green cordial and a bowl of Cheezels.  Kerry knew how to play me.

I put my moreish snacks down on the coffee table and stood in the lounge room feeling a titch less miffed about the lack of Donnie Sutherland. I listened to the far off crowing of chattery ladies in the kitchen, taking in my surrounds:  books,  string art in the shape of a boat, copper vase brimming with pampas grass plumes, big monstery potted plants.  Hello 1976. I plonked myself on the couch.

The telly was on, volume down, with some kind of local footy game beaming out into the empty-except-for-me room. For a while I sat and watched the mulleted men run around oval, eating the Cheezels off my fingers, one by one.  I was doing okay.  This wasn’t so bad after all.  Not that boring, right?

I drank my cordial and wondered how long it was until we could go home and whether I should go and look in all the bathroom cupboards for weird things.  Suddenly my throat felt super Cheezely. My tongue coated with orange crumbs. Cheezels are different to sherbet in that a) orange and be) cheezy crack.

I thought about asking for more cordial, but I could hear a loud, turkey-gobbling sound coming from the kitchen. Either a large bird was on the loose or Kerry’s swizzle stick was in overdrive.  I didn’t want to move in on their clucking.

I decided to go outside instead. Fresh air would do the trick and I might even be able to de-Cheezel myself under the garden tap. I closed the screen door behind me and wondered what to do next.

Luckily, perhaps, I spotted the kids’ bikes next to the patio. A bike ride would be just the thing to blow the cheese away. I chose the brown bike because: awesome and also brown was PRACTICALLY golden which was even mor awesome. (NOTE: as this was the mid 70s I had not yet been exposed to Pinky’s School Of Gender Stereotyping.)

I grabbed the bike and wheeled it out onto the driveway. It was really quiet. No one was around. I’m not even sure where all the people were.

The little red hospital at the bottom of the driveway was obviously so exclusive and private that not a soul dared enter. This was really fine with me. I needed a clear track anyway. I also wanted to pretend to be one of Charlie’s Angels (probably Jaclyn Smith or Farrah.) An audience would cramp my carefree hair tosses and adventurous ways.

I wheeled the bike up towards the road.  It felt freeing to be away from the pate, the patio and the plumes. I’d forgotten about Donnie and the Cheezel crumbs. I filled my lungs with Saturday afternoon air and grinned. The day was mine.

At the top of the drive I turned the bike around and hopped on. I wished I had a jumpsuit on instead of my cord skirt and skivvy. A jumpsuit would be way more Angel-y, I noted with disappointment. I took in the view, straightened the handlebars and planted my feet on the pedals.

I’m not really sure what I thought was going to happen next. I think I imagined that I’d whizz down the driveway, the wind in my hair creating awesome flicks. Then I’d whoosh up the other side of the ‘U’ with rainbows and unicorns and glitter and sparkles magically appearing in my wake.

In reality I may have misjudged things.

My eyes water when I think back, because I hurtled down the hill, unable to even keep my feet on the pedals.  I went really, really fast. It’s okay though because I managed to stop myself by smacking straight into the little hospital’s red brick wall at the bottom. It didn’t seem quite so private now.

I’m a little fuzzy about what happened next, but I know that I sat myself up as a car pulled in to the bottom of the drive. At first I thought they were there to help me, emergency services, all hospital like. Yay. Then I realized they were glancing awkwardly at the pile of bike and cord that was me, not quite sure what to do. They quickly bustled inside, shutting the door behind them. Sob.

It’s not as sad a scene as you’d think, though. In fact it’s probable that glitter and sparkles were prettily swirling in circles over my head, cartoon spill style, as I regained my composure and came to terms with my gangsta ride.

I touched my head. The part that had just impacted with the wall. It felt hot and tight and stingy.  Something weird was going on with shoulder too. Still, there was no blood, so things were actually pretty good.

I quietly righted myself, straightened my skivvy and wheeled the bike back up the drive. I was acting REALLY normal, but the world seemed a little blurry around the edges.

Carefully I propped the bike back where I found it by the patio. I was FINE. I quietly opened the screen door and stole back inside. I could hear my Mum and Brenda still giggling in the kitchen. They did not know that I had just crashed into a hospital. Phew.

Acutely embarrassed by now, I put my hand up to my head again. It felt a bit like a jellyfish now. I had to FORCE myself to stop touching it.

I just did it five more times, I swear.

Wincing, I dug my hand into my pocket, pulling out a crumpled sherbet fountain. Desperate times called for desperate measures. I wondered what Farrah would do as I sucked the sherbet from the licorice stick and sat quietly on the couch.

The mullet men looked all twinkly through my tears. Donnie seemed like a much better idea right about now.

Mum Disclaimer: I am not implying my mum and Kerry were tanked. They were just having a fun time. Also, if I had told my Mum she would have planted kisses all over me and taken me to casualty. I was just being independent and brave.