Well, Connie and I adored Grandpop and Mum, but to be quite honest we weren’t that fussed on Dad. He fought in France in the war, and as Mum always said, it hadn’t been a walk in the park. Poor man. He had a bad shoulder because of a shrapnel wound and problems with his right eye because of the mustard gas. He was also, how can I put this nicely, a little soft in the head. I guess these days they’d have him seeing psychiatrists and all that. Mum said he’d been a happy-go-lucky fellow before he went. He joined up because he thought it would be a lark and it wasn’t a lark at all. He hated it. He saw his three best mates die right in front of him and he thought somebody should take the blame for that. He wouldn’t stand up when they played ‘God Save the Queen’. He’d ramble on and on and he didn’t make much sense really. Mum said he came back different, but that was the only way we knew him, so we didn’t really believe her. It was like living with a large, unpredictable dog.

Well, Connie and I had such carefree, tomboyish lives. Idyllic, really. Such freedom! Sometimes I feel sorry for the children today with their sports and their ballet and their violin lessons. Connie and I could go wherever we wanted in our row boat. Of course, we did have to go to school each day in Glass Bay, but that was all right! Connie was a star pupil. There was a lot of talk about her going off to the university. I was just average, I’m afraid. Too dreamy. After school, Connie and I would just spend hours mucking around on the island and exploring the river, fishing, swimming. We had a special shady spot down on the beach at Sultana Rocks and I’d sketch girls wearing beautiful dresses while Connie read her mystery books. We didn’t go home until it was dark and we were hungry.

Actually, I think we were quite spoiled really. I didn’t think until I was much older how hard our Mum must have worked and how tired she must have been. Dad couldn’t get any work, you see. He was a butcher before the war but he couldn’t find a job when he came back, which was just as well, Mum said, because she was sure he’d chop off his fingers, with his bad eye. He was fighting the Repatriation for years to get a pension. I can still see him at the kitchen table, angrily dictating letters to Mum because he couldn’t see well enough to write. Mum had to work to support us. She had a job at a clothing factory in the city and she’d come home and Dad would be there leaning on the fence waiting to have his tea cooked for him. It never occurred to him that he could have helped around the house. Never occurred to us either. It’s just the way it was. But Mum never complained. She always had such funny stories to tell us about her day. Connie and I would be in stitches. She was always losing things. She was hopeless! She would lose her train ticket and have to sweet-talk her way out of it with the guard. Well, she was so pretty, with all that curly blonde hair! That probably helped. Once she accidentally posted her pay-packet with some letters and she had to wait for hours until the postman came to empty the post-box. Oh, she was a character!

She was a wonderful cook. Better than all of us. Even Connie. And such a talented seamstress too! She made all our clothes without patterns. For Christmas each year I would draw a sketch of the dress I wanted and she’d make it for me. Well, one night in August, Mum left her only warm jacket on the train and came home chilled to the bone. Her teeth were chattering so hard it was making her giggle. She was making ‘brrrr’ noises with her teeth. Connie was cross with her. She said, ‘You’ll get sick, Mum,’ and sure enough she did. There wasn’t enough money for another coat for her and Mum did feel the cold. It started out as just a sniffle and then it turned into a serious chesty cough. She’d lean forward with her hands on her knees and cough and cough and cough. Well, she needed a dose of antibiotics! By the time Connie and I took her off to the hospital in Glass Bay it was already too late. She died of pneumonia a few days after. She was thirty-seven. Whenever I get a prescription from the doctor for antibiotics I look at the pack and I think, That’s all Mum needed. I think, This ordinary box of pills would have saved her life. I remember Connie and me standing there at the hospital, looking at each other, not touching, not crying, just completely and utterly shocked. Our mother was too busy to die. The only time I can remember seeing her lie down was in the hospital. Is that the phone again, Sophie, love? Do you want to get it?

‘It’s OK.’ Sophie gives a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘This is more important.’

Rose smiles at her, takes a sip of tea, clears her throat and continues.

It was just one month later that Grandpop died too. I think it was the shock of losing Mum. He loved her. I think he was probably in love with her, actually.

Well, all of a sudden everything was different. Nothing looked familiar any more. I can remember walking out the front door and looking at the river as if I’d never seen it before. Everything was menacing and grey. My whole world looked and smelled different. There was only Connie, Dad and me on the island and it felt so empty. It needed more people to fill it up. It seemed like Mum had created enough energy and jokes and stories for ten people. It was an awful time, Sophie. We were all grieving and we didn’t really know how to do it, so we just flailed hopelessly about. It was so cold too. I remember that. Connie and I couldn’t get warm.

Dad went all religious in an angry sort of way. We’d always been Catholics, of course, but now Dad was reading the bible out loud every night and wanting Connie and me to kneel down and say the rosary with him. He went on and on about how Mum hadn’t been to confession before she died, and Connie yelled at him, ‘What would she confess? That she lost her good coat? Was that a mortal sin?’ Dad slammed the bible down on Connie’s knuckles and she just laughed. This horrible, bitter laugh.

We soon found out that we were in terrible financial straits. Connie had to forget about doing her Leaving Certificate and try to get a job. She walked around the city for weeks and weeks, lining up in endless queues and coming home with puffy blisters on her heels. I don’t think I’d even heard the word ‘mortgage’ before. We didn’t know we had a mortgage, or that Dad’s wireless was on a time-payment plan. We didn’t know it was going to take us years to pay off what we owed the grocer. We had no idea Mum was only barely keeping us afloat. She protected us from all that.

So, Connie became obsessed with money. All she could talk about was ways to make money. You know Banksia Island, of course? Just north of us? Well, during the Thirties, Banksia Island was a very popular picnic destination. It had quite a successful tea house. And the scones there were dreadful! So heavy and lumpy. Connie kept saying, ‘If people tasted our scones they’d never go back.’ But nobody had even heard of Scribbly Gum Island in those days, and why would people come to us when they could go to Banksia Island? We had to give them a reason–and of course we did, eventually, and the poor old Banksia Island Tea Rooms went out of business quick smart. Although those scones were really unforgivably bad, so we didn’t feel that guilty.