The Island.

Its cold. My Mum has packed my bag to excess and its heavy on my shoulders. I have another bag that I have to take because the one on my shoulders is so full. If I hadn't stood my ground at home, I would have a bag in each hand as opposed to just one. She has the kitchen sink approach to packing, as in 'every thing but'. It drives me nuts.

I stumble as I slowly walk down the gangplank. The little Ferry boat is going up and down beside the wharf with the steady ebb and flow of the sea. The clear night is ruined by the wind that cuts like little knives at my hand which feels like it is turning blue. The nausea that seemed like it would break out of me is starting to subside as the diesel fumes are flushed from my foggy head by the clear, crisp, salty air imparted with the slightest hint of earth and grass and dung. I breathe in great luscious gulps of it.
Paddy or Nobby, the Welsh, Irishman(?) given the job of escorting me here is off and in a couple of strides is gone. I have the feeling he doesn't like children. He looked annoyed when my mother asked if he would look after me on the boat. He held my hand getting on but as soon as I sat down he was off for a smoke. He ignored me for the rest of the trip. I see him up ahead greeting my father with no acknowledgement that I was even on the boat. Some people have no idea about presentation.
No flourish. No tah dah.

My dad sees me and lifts the bag off my shoulders almost picking me up off the ground, as I chime, "Hi Daddy."
"Geez Louise! What did your mum put in this bloody bag? It weighs a tonne." I am just relieved that the bloody thing is off my back.
"How's school?" Standard dad question.
"Oh, its OK." Standard me answer.
"What are they teaching ya? Maths and stuff?"
"Yeah"
"What times table are you up to?"
"Six."
"Well, tell me what the sixes are then," he says this as he puts my bags on the tray at the rear of the tractor.
"Six times one are six, six times two are twelve, six times three are eighteen, six times four...", I drone on as I get up and stand next to the seat of the tractor that my dad plonks himself into.
The tractor starts and is noisy enough to almost drown my little voice out. I don't think my dad is really listening but I drone on nonetheless in the sing songy way I've been taught.

As I get older my dad's interest wanes and the questions he asks get fewer and fewer, until we don't really speak any more. Eventually, he sees me getting off the boat and without a nod or a hint of acknowledgement just starts walking to the car, and I am left to follow in his wake struggling with whatever bags I've been lumbered with this weekend.

I get sent here on the weekends. Every weekend. Usually with my Mum. If I am lucky with a couple of cousins. If not then by myself. I am starting to hate it. The Farm. The Island. The stinky ferry that takes an hour. The sad bunch of bogons that think this is paradise.

Eventually it's part of the divorce settlement. I have to spend time with my father or he has to have access to me. Eventually it's a bit of a joke. My father, is not really that interested in me and I hate it. The boredom of it all. This forced time together. Both of us not really that into it. My father's indifference. His eventual neglect. I hate it!

I was frightened of my own shadow and wanted to feel safe. I was never made to feel safe. I always had an intense sense of foreboding in my chest, like I was waiting for the next shoe to drop. I had no idea what shoe that was but I was always foreboding it.
I never knew what was going to happen from one weekend to the next. It was like russian roulette. I'd be lulled into thinking it was going to be a nice weekend where not only would I survive but I would have a great time with some new kids or I would stay with Mrs MacCleod which would be cool too. Then it would be me being dumped with people I didn't know or being left for hours at a time in the car while my father drank in the pub or went into the house we were parked in front of. Hideous. Boring. Hated it!
I wanted my mother, even though she embarassed me with all her stuff, when she came. It hurts to remember this now because I love her and little children can be hideous self centred ungrateful little shits most of the time. That was me. I was one of them.

I hated the way she packed everything. I hated the stripey bags, that were like bales of wool, that we would have to carry our things in. I hated what we would have to eat on the boat, usually some assorted left overs in assorted tupperware containers. I hated eating in front of all the other people on the boat, who would stare at us like we were monkeys in the zoo. I hated the, what seemed like twenty, assorted bags we all had to carry; we were always a couple of hands short. At least though, when she was here, I would be fed and generally cared for. There would be something that I could trust here but usually it was just me and russian roulette. Never knowing what I had in store for me. Hated it.

I generally just hated the whole idea of the island. I wanted to be in my own bed. Five minutes to the shops. My things all around me. Concrete and tar seal. People, colour and movement. No cow shit. No shit smells emanating from everything. Toilets that flushed instead of dropped off into oblivion. Water that came from a tap inside. Showers and bathrooms that worked.
I didn't have a childhood that the other kids had and I hated the fact I wasn't like them. I wanted to go to the pictures and watch tv late and have breakfast in bed. Not be bored silly on an island, freezing my goolies off, having to play outside, finding my own fun.

Find your own fun.

"Off you go. Find your own fun" is what the adults used to say sipping their cups of tea as they chatted in the warmth.

Find your own fun. By myself. No wonder they think I'm a space cadet. I am a bloody space cadet. No one to play with most of the time apart from the trees and god forbid I play with the animals. They all have jobs or are destined for other things.

"Don't play with the doggy! Its a working dog and you'll make her soft if you pat her."

Can't play with the sheep because they're just bloody stupid!

Or the pig. You're Bacon buddy!

Or the goat. He'll bloody go you!

Or the chickens. They won't lay if you muck about with them! They're not toys you bloody idiot!
For some reason it's the cows I am particularly mean about. I am incredibly critical of their unique dumbness.
"Moooooo, you stupid bloody thing!" The cow just looks back incredulous. "Mooooo, I said! Don't you know how to say hello back? You stupid bloody..." I think it understood, finally, and is about to give me a piece of it's mind; it's heading towards me. Shit. Up and onto the treated pine fence I go. The cow I called stupid is 'Mooing' it's head off towards me like its calling the troops to come and kick some seven year old butt. Shit.
They obviously are too stupid to have understood. They all just look over, looking bored. Stupid bloody... Ooops, here she comes! This ones not as stupid as the others, she understands english.
"Sorry, Mrs Moo Cow! Your not stupid. My mistake, I thought you were a dummy but you're obviously not!" I'm apologising from the safety of the other side of the fence.

Hate this stinky old place. Hours to fill that I could be watching TV and here I am outside by myself finding my own bloody fun!!
I go for walks up the hill and when I get to the top I sigh, "Oh what a beautiful view!" It is breathtaking (as is the whole bloody island).
I hate it, but thats what one has to say when they have walked all the way up the bloody thing.
It's beauty depresses me. Having no one to play with is a lonely business. Beauty is all well and good but if theres no one to say, "Oh yes, isn't it?" It's just not as beautiful. A prison no matter how pretty is still a prison.

Look at the boats. I wish I was on one. Look at the plane. God I really wish I was on that! Going anywhere but here. Australia. To stay with my favourite Aunty. Elsie. And her husband Uncle Bernard. Aunty Elsie always buys me wonderful presents. She buys them for everyone but I hope, that for me, they are especially good. I think they are. I think I'm her favourite. I hope I am, anyway, but I have a lot of cousins to compete with. I just do my best.

Hate this bit of my life. It just generally sucks. Being here is like killing time without a watch. It just drags on. I can't wait for the final call to leave. I pack my bags hours before I have to leave. I have my travelling clothes all ready for me to just slip into when its time to go. Two minutes and I am ready to go! Can't wait for the boat.
"Seeya!" And I'm off out of the car and running to the wharf. The ferry's not even here but I like to be ready to get on it. I don't want even the slightest chance that I will miss it, to be part of the possibilities available. I am such a geek!

'Seeya later you stupid island!' - 'Seeya later you stupid old bastard!' (I would, never in a million years, have thought this last bit, about my father, when I was a kid, but I wish I had.)
I am starting to feel happier already as the boat leaves the little island harbour. With each island we pass, my joy increases. They are like sign posts to mark the increments in anticipated joy. When I get off the boat in Auckland, at the Ferry building, I breathe a huge sigh of relief! I'm home. My stress is already subsiding as my Mum takes my bag.
"How's your Dad?" Standard Mum question.
"Oh, he's fine." Standard me answer.
"What did you do?"
"Oh, nothing special," I sing song back. I spare her the details of my boring time. I don't like to dwell. I'm home. That's all that matters. I have a another week before I have to go back.

To the prison. The boring hell. The Island.