if I were floating several feet above the ground, left. Five minutes later Carmel Hart was running after me. Her father had locked the window; she couldnât get in. Since my fellow lodger Brian Sharp had now left for Melbourne, I installed her chastely in his room for what was left of the night.
In Europe the town focus is the square; in Australian country towns in summer itâs the swimming pool. During Maryboroughâs unsparing winters, the pool was no more than a white scoop of concrete, dormant behind the trees of the park. In September it was watered back to life, and by November the whole town seemed to gather round it, like Hindus by the Ganges, celebrating rebirth. We joined in the celebrations, and had a courtship in and out of the water, submarine and ultramarine.
After romance, ritual. I met her parents, we had the requisite cups of tea and lamingtons, and Carmel declared it a success. Her father Harry hadnât found me mad after all, though her mother Anne said that I had âfunny eyesâ. Then it was her turn. Aunts and uncles and family friends were arranged around our lounge room, and my mother wheeled in her big-occasion auto tray, laden with more than lamingtonsâAlexanders from Patersons of Chapel Street, cream cakes, vanilla slices and a crowning spongeâcrushingly middle-class hospitality, perhaps designed to put rural inferiors in their place. My mother called Carmel âdearâ a lot, and though Carmel later said it felt like a Royal Show judging, this too was declared a success. My mother later agreed, though having heard of Anneâs opinion that I had funny eyes, she riposted that while Carmel was a lovely girl, her legs were a little large.
We became engaged, as one did then, very soon after. It was concentrically celebrated with two parties at Carmelâs South Caulfield flat. There were balloons and booze, but no interÂactions between my university friends and her Bendigonians, who soon went outside and began running around the house bellowing pop songs, while the intellectuals huddled in the living room singing the then-fashionable psalms of the French composer Joseph Gelineau. At the inner party Carmel encountered puzzled stares (how did he get her ?) and at the outer earlier suitors, now well away, threatened to carry her off and save her from these hymn-singing wimps.
Who chose his trousers? (Iâm now engaged to Carmel.)
Man and wife
So instead of a ship to Italy with my friend Bill Hannan, I took a night train with my new fiancé to Mildura, where weâd both been posted, to alight dazed at 6 am at Ouyen for refreshments in preparation for the final unsteady legâbecause, we were told, the desert sand doesnât provide a firm foundation for the tracks.
Mildura might have been remote but its population was surprisingly mixed. As well as pastoralists and blockies (grape growers) in wide flat hats, there were Italians, Greeks, Slavs, bodgies, pig-hunters, ferals, Aboriginal people and drifters. A few days later a Hungarian refugee train further enriched the mix (they were from the failed uprising two months earlier). We were paying a Saturday visit to the Catholic church when it began to fill up with them, with United Nations Refugee Organisation in white letters on their brand-new bags. They processed up the aisle behind a priest in gold vestments, and chorused responses to his intonations of lament or thanksgiving. (Where in the hell have we ended up? they must have wondered.)
To avoid temptation we took rooms at a chaste distance. The Education Department solved the problem by declaring Carmel âsurplus to requirementsâ and exiled her temporarily to a place even more remoteâManangatang, where the big event, she told me, after coping with the culture shock, was the arrival of the weekly Melbourne train.
In the May term holidays we married, at St Maryâs East St Kilda , with my old school friend Gerrard Briglia the
In Europe the town focus is the square; in Australian country towns in summer itâs the swimming pool. During Maryboroughâs unsparing winters, the pool was no more than a white scoop of concrete, dormant behind the trees of the park. In September it was watered back to life, and by November the whole town seemed to gather round it, like Hindus by the Ganges, celebrating rebirth. We joined in the celebrations, and had a courtship in and out of the water, submarine and ultramarine.
After romance, ritual. I met her parents, we had the requisite cups of tea and lamingtons, and Carmel declared it a success. Her father Harry hadnât found me mad after all, though her mother Anne said that I had âfunny eyesâ. Then it was her turn. Aunts and uncles and family friends were arranged around our lounge room, and my mother wheeled in her big-occasion auto tray, laden with more than lamingtonsâAlexanders from Patersons of Chapel Street, cream cakes, vanilla slices and a crowning spongeâcrushingly middle-class hospitality, perhaps designed to put rural inferiors in their place. My mother called Carmel âdearâ a lot, and though Carmel later said it felt like a Royal Show judging, this too was declared a success. My mother later agreed, though having heard of Anneâs opinion that I had funny eyes, she riposted that while Carmel was a lovely girl, her legs were a little large.
We became engaged, as one did then, very soon after. It was concentrically celebrated with two parties at Carmelâs South Caulfield flat. There were balloons and booze, but no interÂactions between my university friends and her Bendigonians, who soon went outside and began running around the house bellowing pop songs, while the intellectuals huddled in the living room singing the then-fashionable psalms of the French composer Joseph Gelineau. At the inner party Carmel encountered puzzled stares (how did he get her ?) and at the outer earlier suitors, now well away, threatened to carry her off and save her from these hymn-singing wimps.
Who chose his trousers? (Iâm now engaged to Carmel.)
Man and wife
So instead of a ship to Italy with my friend Bill Hannan, I took a night train with my new fiancé to Mildura, where weâd both been posted, to alight dazed at 6 am at Ouyen for refreshments in preparation for the final unsteady legâbecause, we were told, the desert sand doesnât provide a firm foundation for the tracks.
Mildura might have been remote but its population was surprisingly mixed. As well as pastoralists and blockies (grape growers) in wide flat hats, there were Italians, Greeks, Slavs, bodgies, pig-hunters, ferals, Aboriginal people and drifters. A few days later a Hungarian refugee train further enriched the mix (they were from the failed uprising two months earlier). We were paying a Saturday visit to the Catholic church when it began to fill up with them, with United Nations Refugee Organisation in white letters on their brand-new bags. They processed up the aisle behind a priest in gold vestments, and chorused responses to his intonations of lament or thanksgiving. (Where in the hell have we ended up? they must have wondered.)
To avoid temptation we took rooms at a chaste distance. The Education Department solved the problem by declaring Carmel âsurplus to requirementsâ and exiled her temporarily to a place even more remoteâManangatang, where the big event, she told me, after coping with the culture shock, was the arrival of the weekly Melbourne train.
In the May term holidays we married, at St Maryâs East St Kilda , with my old school friend Gerrard Briglia the
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