by Bill Cumming

The following story is written by Tracey Hair, who is now Director of Development of H.O.M.E., Maine’s largest homeless shelter and an Emmaus Community. For me, nothing speaks to the incredible power that resides within each person more clearly than the sharing of one’s own experience. Beautifully written and so very powerful. B.C.

“I was raised in a refuge…” – Tracey Hair

The conductor repeated his usual call “Windsor, Windsor station.” I stepped off the train into the familiar smells of the suburb, a combination of train fuel and cool air with a hint of urine from the platform where homeless people sleep. It had been a long journey from the United States and I didn’t know why I had made the journey here, I was supposed to continue south to a small town called “Sale” on the southern border of Victoria It is the town I was born in and I was supposed to reunite with Dad there. I had changed my mind in mid flight and upon landing decided I wanted to go home. Home is what lead me to Windsor…

Windsor is an inner northern suburb of Brisbane located about three and a half Km from the Central Business District. Large old red brick buildings set the landscape for what I remember as a place of freedom. I hadn’t been to Windsor in ten years and had no idea where I would go once I got there. I didn’t know any people there but I was drawn to the lingering feeling of peace I felt when I thought of Windsor.

I was 13 when I arrived at Windsor for the first time, we arrived by taxi cab with my mother, my sister and two large black garbage bags in tow which held everything we owned. It was dark when we arrived and I was angry so I sat in silence the entire ride from our camper in Deagon. My sister had told the school about the night before. We had gotten used to calling our teachers instead of the police when he beat her. My mind was distracted and the last thing I wanted to do was change schools again.

A tall lady with a smile as big as the world was there to greet us her name was Sue; she was kind and had a smile that comforted without even knowing her. In her long white van we drove to Chisolm Women and Children’s Refuge.( I would later realize that Chisolm was named after Caroline Chisolm , she was a progressive 19th-century English humanitarian )From the outside Chisolm looked like any other house in Queensland . Large and spacious with the main living space raised above what looks like an open basement. The house had bars on the windows and a yard with a wooden swing set and a cubby house. To enter the house you had to walk through the open basement and up a set of stairs that are lined with painted handprints. Visitors were required to use the front stairway, which was intercepted by an iron door. Chisolm was not the first refuge we had been in; we had lived in and out of refuges since I was 5 and had become accustomed to being on the run, sometimes my last name was Smith. My mother , who had often struggled with inner demons had decided to leave Trevor “for the last time.”

During 1987 and 1988 Mum had found us a father. His name was Trevor and he was a tall strong man with a tattoo of a spider web on his elbow and the letters hate spelled on his knuckles. When I met Trevor for the first time I liked him instantly. He had come to save us from my Mothers last boyfriend who had ripped our entire flat apart in a fit of rage. Trevor came just in time – or not.

In the beginning he helped me with my mission to get mum to stop drinking. He bought me a pink bicycle which he later hocked and offered us a sense of protection in a world where we needed it. He came with grandparents and aunts and even a girl name Kylie who I fondly called my cousin. For a while I convinced myself that this was good. Mum loved Trevor and insisted that we would be a family. We played house together and for the first time I called someone Dad.

I’m not sure if I loved Trevor but I felt sad for him when he cried. He sobbed passionately if mum threatened to leave . I didn’t like mum to stand up to him and give him reason to punish her more. When we lived with Trevor in Deagon we lived in a camper in the yard of his parent’s house, the camper was old and smelled musty most of the time. It wasn’t long before I realized that Trevor was not here to save us. Trevor was a violent man and I think the most frightening aspect of his personality was his inability to control his violence. In 1987 calling the police for help when he was out of control was a waste of time. The police were not allowed to interfere with domestic situations and rarely answered domestic violence calls. On occasion I would get lucky (or so I thought) and an officer would come to our home. When they came they would blame my mother for provoking him. If we were really bloody – only then would they arrest him. Four hours later they would let him out, just in time for us to run or clean up for the next round. It depends if we had any money or not if we stayed or left. The night we ended up at Chisolm she had decided to stay but my sister instead told her teacher at Sandgate High School and we were forced to leave.

Changing schools became a constant almost natural event when we lived with Trevor. When Mum met him I was attending Hamilton State School, it was a small school much smaller than Ascot Primary school where I attended for only one day- I left Ascot because I didn’t have the right uniform and felt out of place. Mum sent me to school in a green checked uniform which belonged to a different school –I didn’t want to miss school so I went to Hamilton where they gave you a uniform.

The school, a red brick building with a small playground and swimming pool was small and easy to get to by train. I traveled on the same train as the school cleaners who had to be at the school before children arrived. We traveled for an hour from my train station, the school cleaner and I, talking about everything except my life. The cleaner had two children she adored and I secretly wished I was one of them. She was a chubby woman who I imagined did not make much money , her clothes were worn and her appearance a little disheveled. Through her rosy cheeks and smoke stained teeth she would invite me to sit with her each day.

“G’day lovey “she would say as I boarded the train patting the seat beside her to invite me to sit with her and I always did. She smelled like an old ashtray, bad perfume and stale coffee. I know she felt she needed to save me – after all what would a smelly kid be doing taking a train to school at 5am?

I liked Hamilton State School; I liked my friend Debbie who was very short with blond hair close to her head. She looked like a boy and something about her made me at ease. We used to walk to the train station together after school which is when I learned which marbles were the best to win. I didn’t have friends usually. We moved around too much dodging welfare and angry men. I never went to Debbie’s house and she never came to mine. Debbie and I became best friends in a week. Hamilton only had a few hundred kids and I knew every teacher by name. Each night I would lay my blue t-shirt out on the drawers, which displayed the Hamilton emblem in dark blue letters on the front. The school had given me a uniform for free. Laid beside my uniform would be my blue Hamilton State School Hat wide brimmed to protect me from the sun. The rule at school was “no hat no play” and if you didn’t wear your hat to school you had to have recess inside. On one particular day I wish I had forgotten my blue hat.

It was early on a crisp Brisbane morning, the kind that smells of traffic and wet leaves. I was playing marbles in the yard, every recess we played marbles and had made a fiercely competitive marble game over the months at Hamilton, we spent hours earning our right to a pocket full of gold which would be a pocket full of “cats eyes” and “stonkers”., My marble bag was impressive. I had managed to win the Stonker – a stonker is the prized marble it is bigger than the rest and only won by knocking the other marbles out. Knocking the stonker out was a skill that took me hours of practice to master. Each night I would count my marbles and admire their beautiful colors making sure to hide the most prized. The cat’s eye was black with a yellow centre and named because it looks just like the eye of a cat. The Milky Way, a blue marble with white spots on it. I had over 100 marbles. You could buy a bag for $8.99 but you had to win the good ones.

During one game I heard a lot of children yelling in the distance at least I thought. I was curious to see what was behind the large group of children at the fence. A wire fence – a typical fence that you see surrounding houses in Queensland, surrounded Hamilton.

The children crowded around the fence focused on something happening on the other side. My friend Debbie and I ran over shoving our prized marbles in our pockets losing some on the way but not wanting to miss the action we didn’t pick them up – I certainly would have picked it up if it was the stonker I had won…

“I’ll beat you there” she said as we took off toward the excitement. As I got to the crowd out of breath, I could see through gaps a large woman with a lot of blood on her dress her dress was white with black flowers and large stains of blood down the front of it. I saw my mother on the ground, looking at the man who at the time did not look like Trevor. He seemed different, his face was wilder than usual and his clothes not the same. He was dressed in fancy pants they were a chocolate brown and a shirt, tan, which was now covered in my mother’s blood. I remembered what today was and knew why he was angry.

As his large fist came down to connect with her face I froze. My mother was drunk and her head faced down exposing a bald spot where she once had hair she cried, she didn’t see me. I wondered if she had come to get me – and he had beaten her to it. My heart felt like it had disappeared into my throat – it was choking me as I fought to keep the lump contained. I had become used to controlling the lump in my throat. I swallowed hard and turned to look around.

Frozen, I looked at my friends as they watched in horror, and as the warmth ran down my legs I felt a sudden urge to vomit. I desperately wanted to be invisible. I walked with my sweater tied around my waste. I walked and walked and walked until I arrived at Boondall trains station further down the line.

I rode the train to the end of the line and back again. I loved to ride the train the repetitive clapping of the wheels on the track mesmerized my thoughts. In 1988 Trains became my sanctuary. I memorized each station and would often get off to explore. My favorite was the station that stopped at the pineapple factory. An Asian woman Maricris would always have pineapple samples for me if we happen to be on the same train.

After a while I went home and waited. Our house smelled like sour laundry. We had a pile of laundry almost to the ceiling in our bathroom. There was no laundry mat nearby so it sat and sat. Hours later he came home and my mother was with him, they acted like nothing had happened – it lasted a few hours.

Later that night I woke to my mother yelling for me, her hair stuck in the grasps of his fist. He broke her nose that night and cooked her breakfast in the morning. I never returned to Hamilton State School.

On the day we went to Chisolm My principal came in to our classroom he was very tall with brown hair close to his head. He wore a suit with a skinny tie. He asked Mrs. Lafferty, my teacher, and I to step outside. He explained that my mother and my sister were waiting at the High School and that Trevor had beaten my mother. Instantly I went to grab my port and leave to help them.

That wasn’t the plan. Mr. G wanted to drive me to the high school where my sister went, Sandgate High School. On the drive he asked me the usual questions, how long it had been going on? He asked why I never told anybody and why I didn’t ask for help. He seemed to care – and then he put his large hand on my leg to console me…at that moment I started a new world. My name was Kate and I lived in a beautiful dark brick house. My mum cooked wonderful food and came to my school plays. I was Kate for a while, sometimes Kylie and even Amber. My mind took me to safety.

Everyone wonders why we didn’t ask for help. The fact was we did over and over and over again. Our flat was about a half a kilometer from a payphone –. Sometimes I would run to the phone run so fast out of fear of the dark and if they came they would take him for four hours. A lot can happen in a man’s mind in four hours. Four hours to think of how we turned on him, four hours to turn into a monster seeking revenge. We used to wait for him to return 1, 2 sometimes 3 am. If we were lucky he would cry and spoil us with love and safety, he would even be nice to Sheba. (Sheba was my dog, my only companion who he would later hit over the head with a hammer). -His kindness would last for days.

I got out of Mr. G’s car to find my mother and sister sitting in the foyer with two large trash bags. Kerrie had told the school everything. She had told them the horrible things Trevor had made us watch, she had told them about the night before. We left for Chisolm in a taxi…

I used to think that the police were scared of him too and that’s why they wouldn’t come but then they came and when they did they were mad at my mother for provoking him. I got mad at her too I hated her for arguing with him, it wasn’t long before I started to blame her too. Blame only lasted until the next time I saw her cry. Then I stabbed him with a butter knife. They came then.

It wasn’t until I got to Chisolm that I fully understood the reasons why Queensland police didn’t come to domestic violence calls. I had called them for years in towns that I did’t know and from payphones that were foreign to me. After a while I stopped calling the police and started to turn to my school teachers for help. My sister and I learned to be crazy. We learned to get help in ways that worked. I used to burn myself in places that teachers could see just to get them to ask if I needed help.

Chisolm was like any other shelter I stayed in, full of kind women whose only job was to keep you safe. I used to like the idea that we were hidden, that no one could find us. We always went back but for a while I lived in a “Den of mothers.” I was 13 when I was at Chisolm and I was 13 when I decided I would not go with her when she went back to Trevor.

The women at Chisolm Sue the lady who picked us up on the first night, Heather, Nancy and many whose names I can’t remember allowed me to stay there by myself. Nancy took me home with her when they needed the space and I lived in the back of her house in a small camper. Nancy was a strong gruff woman who had lived a hard life I suspect which brought her to work at Chisolm. She smoked like a chimney on the way to school which was just up the hill from Chisolm. I stayed with Nancy for a few weeks and woke every morning to an awful alarm clock which was supposed to be a rooster crowing.

I never bonded with Nancy and was always glad when Heather arrived at 7am to take me to school. It seemed to work perfectly. Heather, who worked at Chisolm each day, would be driving right by my school on the way to work. My school – while I was at Chisolm was Windsor State School my favorite school of all. Windsor State School was a large school with three very big light brick buildings. It was an inner city school with long cement steps which were perfect for sliding down on skateboards. At Windsor we would take the wheels off our skateboards and slide down the stairs.

I met a teacher at Windsor who changed my life. Chisolm was located about a kilometer away from Windsor State School so all of the kids who moved through Chisolm attended Windsor temporarily. Mrs. Morse was her name. She had long red hair and a warm smile. She hugged all of the time and read stories that captivated my imagination. Mrs. Morse was also the principle of the school and I would sometimes hear her have to be stern with students but she was always kind and we loved her. Mrs. Morse taught me to sing silent night in German and helped us put on the play Sleeping Beauty. I played the part of Sleeping Beauty and had to kiss the prince, which repulsed me. When the play was performed Nancy, Sue and Heather came to watch. My mother had moved to Indooropily with Trevor.

I had a best friend at Windsor named Cristina, she was from Manila in the Philippines. Cristina had lived in Australia since she was 2 and was in my class. Cristina lived in the city (Brisbane) in a small flat that had only two windows. I spent a lot of time at Cristina’s house and became part of the family. Cristinas mum was a small lady about 5 ft tall. She had chubby cheeks and a cute tiny smile. She did not speak English well but well enough to keep a job cleaning at the Royal Brisbane Hospital. I spent the night at Cristinas house at least four times a week and started to learn to speak Philipian, “My sakit ako” I would say if I was pretending to be sick. It meant I am sick. Usually she would let us stay home. Cristina and I loved to go into the city together and to the bi centennial pool which was a swimming pool complex with high diving boards. Cristinas mum would buy us clothes and take us to the exhibition. The exhibition was a fair with rides and show bags full of stickers and lollies.

Cristina had a step dad. I hated him and so did she. He was from Bulgaria and had a thick accent that I could never understand. I didn’t see him much but I saw the black eyes he would give her mum. Cristina had never been in a refuge. He was away a lot and when he was we would all have fun breaking the rules, eating lollies and watching movies late.

Cristina had a large family –going to china town meant going to eat yum cha with her cousins and aunts about twenty of them. Cristina never met my mum, I rarely saw my mum either – she would sneak away to visit Trevor on the side. She always went back.

It was December at Windsor and we were making Christmas cards for friends. Mrs. Morse had given us red and green paper and lots of things to put on the cards. Sitting at my tidy box. I always wondered why they called them tidy boxes. They were wooden desks that had an open drawer beneath.

I had my own desk and kept my pencils and books in it. We didn’t have pens yet. In order to graduate to a pen you had to pass a written test. I took my test eventually and passed it. I never understood why but I was lucky to have good handwriting. My sister and my mother could never read or write well.

The Christmas card I was making was to Ty Daniels. Ty was a skinny kid taller than the other kids. He was an only child who lived right next door to the school. I thought he was lucky. “Dear Ty”, the card read “I hope you have a Merry Christmas”. I was daydreaming as I drew the odd shaped Christmas tree on the front (I was never very good at drawing or painting) Daydreaming about the weekend of swimming Cristina and I had planned. Christmas in Australia was usually a scorcher and swimming was usually high on the list for things to do during the school holidays.

The distraction came out of the corner of my eye; it looked like Heather at the door. I couldn’t imagine why she would be at the door, unless we had another kid at the refuge that was coming into my class. But that didn’t make sense school would be over in three days for Christmas Holidays. We get almost seven weeks off for Christmas Holidays. I was headed for Kedron High School the following year. Or so I thought…

I never got to Kedron High. It was Heather at the Door, Heather who worked at the refuge. Heather was a tall lady with dark brown hair just past her shoulders. She was a hippy who played the djembe and smelt like patchouli. All of the women at the refuge were different. Different in a way that was intriguing. Sue worked with the children. She was a tall woman also and very kind. Sue was the most conservative out of them all in regards to her looks. She wore esprit clothing – a fancy brand and drove a Toyota Camry, which was old. Later in life I would meet up with Sue and live with her before moving to the United States. Judy was the weekend worker and the firs t open lesbian I had ever met. I knew she was a lesbian because she would bring her “lover “as she called her to work with her. Judy took us on day trips. We would pile into the white van (the one that picked us up on the first night there) and head out for a day of fun. Sometimes they would take us to the Centennial Pool – Judy was a feminist in every way. She didn’t shave a hair on her body and I would find myself not knowing where to look when she had her togs on. Her pubic hair exposed to the world. I was afraid she would catch me looking. In the 80’s you didn’t see hair much and especially on women .My mother who made money from selling herself was quite the opposite she shaved everything.

Mrs. Morse was out of the room for an eternity it seemed. I was worried and certain that my mother had been hurt. I hadn’t been living with my mother for several months I had spent time at Nancy’s and at Rickies. I was living at Rickies when Heather came to school. Ricki was Dutch and Hank was Dutch Indonesian, his skin was dark almost black and hers very white. They were a short couple who lived with their children Desiree and David in a suburb north of Brisbane. The house was clean and cold without rugs. I was a long way from the train station and had little freedom to ride the tracks. I bounced from house to house between four of the refuge workers. I loved it and they all loved me. What I didn’t realize was that they were all taking me for a ride. Or at least that is how I saw it. I was a street wise kid and of course who wouldn’t love the attention of women in their 30’s doting on you? I didn’t realize at the time but I was setting myself up for a painful and permanent separation from my mother I had planned in my mind that I would live with Ricki until I was eighteen and then I would find a job and a place to move my mother away from Trevor. He was secure and familiar for her. She used to say he felt bad for losing his temper. I used to agree, I loved her and I hated to love her.

I never really understood why she chose him over us. (My sister by now had moved to the streets where she sold sex to make money, a trade she learned from mum.) I had concluded though with certainty as most 13 year olds do, that all she needed was security. I was going to be 18 in five years. If I could wait that long.

The time away from my mother was hard and I longed for her every day. I visited her every weekend until she moved to Ipswich with Trevor. I went there once by train just to check on her. The long train ride to Ipswich was a little out of my comfort zone it was on a different line and almost two hours away.

My mother and I had a bond. She was 21 when she had me, married to Graeme a 20 year old Panel Beater from Geelong. They met at a party; don’t remember a time when they were together in fact the only evidence I have that they existed as a couple is in a set of old Photos taken before she took us an left when I was four.

There are a few of those pictures – the ones from the late seventies when I was a toddler. Its fate really that I even have them but that’s another story… The photos show a woman with long hair and laughing eyes, dressed in shorts that should have been illegal they were so short. She and dad seemed like a young surfer couple in the pictures. I held onto those pictures and strangely they were among the items I brought to the United States when I came back.

I held onto them because they were evidence of a “normal” life. I never really knew my mother in peace so our bond was built in battle. It was built in conversations on the train about anything I wanted. I used to play games with her for hours, games like eye spy and go fish. , we were both very outgoing and would make faces at each other from across crowded rooms. I was attached to her hip for most of my childhood some because I adored her and some because I feared for her safety.

Glenda always took the side of the underdog even if it meant getting arrested. One time she attacked a policeman during an arrest of an aboriginal man. She assumed it was police brutality but from where I stood he was just plain drunk.

I only went to Ipswich once and I was certain on my train ride home that I could never return to Ipswich, I had spent two very long days sitting by my mother who was drowning in a large bottle of xxxx. I didn’t know on the long train ride home that I would never be allowed to live with my mother again. I didn’t know that my long walks in the city with Sue were part of a plan to take me away from my mother permanently.

Mrs. Morse called me out of class when she returned. She took my hand and led me to the library. The library was small. It had brown carpet wall-to-wall and big filing cards to help students find books. I never used them; they intimidated me. We went into the office in the back of the library. The windows were traditional louvers glass rectangles that didn’t work very well. She sat down on a desk against the window and picked up my hands. She looked at me and said “Tracey you are leaving today to Melbourne. Your father has come forward to take care of you.” I noticed Mrs. Morse had a small tear in her eye as she leaned forward to hug me good-bye. (I would find out 22 years later in 2009 that she and her husband wanted to adopt me.) My breath stopped. What did this mean? Mrs. Morse went on to explain that I was going to fly to Melbourne today.

My first worry was my mother; I knew she would be devastated to lose us, especially to my father who we had no relationship with. I didn’t have any words. Just worries, my mind filled with worries for my mother, my family. I could not speak and as heather and I drove to the airport I thought of my Christmas card and Ty and missed them already. I knew I would never see them again. The wait at the airport was long. We sat in silence despite heathers attempts to talk. My number was called. I knew this quickly as I had stared at my ticket stub for an hour before it was called. I got up and walked down the tunnel. I realized once I was in my seat that I had forgotten to hug her, I had forgotten also even walking on the plane.

I never lived with Mum again after that day. I called her on the phone. I was against it from the start and wondered whose idea it was to make me tell her – and over the phone?” That day would stay with me for years. Until 1997 when I was deported from the Untied States. I chose to go back to Windsor and arrived at Windsor trains Station. I went to Windsor because I was drawn there, drawn by the lingering familiar smell of wet pavement and urine. Drawn to the feeling of peace I felt at Chisolm. I had been asked to leave the U.S. and with no real connection in Australia anymore I tried to go to the place I last felt at home.

“Windsor, Windsor Station” the conducted said. Chisolm wasn’t there anymore. I noticed as I came over the hill. In its place was an office building. The two houses beside were gone also. I stood and stared at the building, I felt lost. I sat on the curb, lit up a cigarette and thought. I thought about the days walking home from school to Chisolm. I thought about the life – so far away. There began my return to America…