Read Online Roundabout at Bangalow by Shirley Walker - Free Book Online

passed away … Although of a quiet and retiring disposition, deceased made herself a universal favourite with both staff and children, the principal speaking highly of her character and her worth as a teacher, and one who will be greatly missed. Deceased leaves one brother (Mr Louis Browne, of Goolmangar) and one sister (Mrs T. Carlton, of Boorie Creek). The late Miss Browne was conscious till the last, and died in the arms of her sister-in-law.
    Her brother’s child, Maisie, aged 10 years and 7 months, second daughter of Mr L. Browne, of Goolmangar, who had been living with her aunt for the past six years, also developed influenza symptoms on Friday night and passed away at 11 o’clock on Sunday night, two hours after the death of her aunt.
    The funerals took place yesterday, to the Church of England portion of the cemetery, and it was pathetic indeed to witness both coffins being lowered into the grave at the one time. The burial service was read by the Rev. A. R. Ebbs, who said they had gathered at the graveside to witness one of the saddest missions which had ever come into their lives in the death of those they were laying to rest … It was difficult to express one’s self at such times; they did not question God’s dealings, but would find behind them all He was ever a God of love. The occasion spoke to them with deep solemnity, warning them to be ready for the call, as their one and biggest need was to be ready for the summons, thereby entering, when it came, into the presence of the Master, as he believed the faithful would.
    Leaving aside a few inaccuracies and the pious way that the parson turns two hideous deaths into a call for readiness to face the God of love, I must ask where my mother is in this picture. She places the death of her sister and in particular the way in which it is broken to her as the crucial event in her life, the cause of her terrible nervous instability. I hear this story told repeatedly to psychiatrists in later life as she has one breakdown after another.
    It seems that at first she is not told of her sister’s death, only her aunt’s. I dare say, knowing her nature and her love for her sister, that her parents decide to break the news in person. When the adults return from the funeral, she asks where her sister is, only to be told that she too has died and has already been buried. The loss, compounded by the fact that she was told in this way, leads to a complete breakdown, a hysterical fit which, she says, lasts for two days during which she is quite uncontrollable and her parents have to put aside their own grief and take care of her. I doubt whether any manner of telling would have led to a better outcome, for surely the point is that she had refused to go, through wilful obstinacy; her sister had taken her place and had died for it. I wonder whether anyone reminded her of this, or indeed needed to remind her. Consider the position of the father too. He had paid his daughter half a crown to go to her death. The guilt and complicity shared by the father and daughter, and the resentment, each of the other’s part in it, creates an enduring bond between the two, a bond that is, to say the least, ambiguous.
    This event occurs when my mother is twelve. I have little record of her adolescence apart from her school reports from Lismore High School, and a carefully posed photo taken on a country verandah when she is about sixteen. At first glance this photograph appears completely normal, one of thousands taken of girls at that time and at that age. It shows her as dark, pretty, with the latest chic twenties bob. She tells me that she has defied her father, has gone to Lismore, had her hair cut and has come home with her thick black plaits in her handbag. She is dressed in flapper mode, in a flat-chested, long-waisted dress with a serrated hemline (crochet? lace?) and a long string of ivory beads. Nevertheless there is something about the photograph that is