Chapter 8

As a major shock to all of us, especially herself, Gae began chucking her guts up one morning. You'd think a registered nurse of her length of standing would have recognised the symptoms! After all, at one point she was in charge of the neonatal clinic at Kogarah.

Eventually she went to our local GP expecting something to do with an ulcer or something. She lived with me, so of course she was under stress all the time.

The doctor listened to her symptoms then looked her in the eye, "Did you know, before you were married and still at the hospital, I almost asked you to join my surgery? I was going to ask a medical professional who doesn't recognise early pregnancy signs to work for me! Tsk, tsk, tsk."

He took the blood sample to make sure, and gave her a once-over since he hadn't seen her in the six months since Marilyn last had tonsillitis.

"Your BP (blood pressure) is up a bit, as I would expect with someone of your age just being told they're pregnant. I'll see you in a couple of weeks; make an appointment out front with Francine."

When she told me, her nerves were as tight as a drum, almost humming. I replied, "I thought it might be something like that. I thought if we practiced enough, we eventually had to get it right. Congratulations dear, and it's about time. Does that mean we can stop doing all that icky stuff all the time which makes you scream, and that wrecks bulldog clips?"

Gae punched me in the arm which is her way of telling me she loves me. "No fuckin' fear! I need double the dosage of testosterone inserted to make sure we get a boy. There are enough women around this house, distracting you."

"Oh, woe is me, alack and alas, the life of a working man is never done. Stop laughing wench, this is serious, I'm feeling crook because I'm going to be a father; this morning sickness is the pits. It's okay for you, you've done this all before and it's like riding a bike. I don't care if it's three thirty in the afternoon, it's my tummy that's sick, not my watch."

Gae went from a ball of nerves, worrying herself sick, to laughing hysterically.

"Mumma, thank you, you are the very definition of sunshine which lights up my life. You made me so proud when you said 'I will' at that ceremony. Mind you, you never actually said you'd marry me when I asked you to."

"Jesus, old man, will you drop that? It was ten years ago for Christ's sake! Did you pull something out of the freezer for tea?"

The girls that were home went into hysterics and found it was necessary to ring everyone in the neighbourhood ... especially, first, Veronica. She damaged the phone cord with her scream. Kimbo and Marilyn were on the train coming home. I thought I'd take up drinking again when they got home; Jessica, Amy and Tammy were bad enough.

Jessica actually had almost finished her nursing certificate. She had to work hard for two years to get the entry education requirements out of the way, because learning was not a natural ability for her, nor for Amy. She also had that marriage thing that she was fixated on out of the way. Her comment that 'No man is worth this shit. I'd even stop fucking women if I had to go through all this crap for them, ' told me where her focus currently lay.

Amy was the secretary to Gary's partner. He was almost never there according to her, and she spent much of her time helping the remainder of the office staff on general duties like a temp. Gary said that though she was not the brightest globe on the ceiling, he wasn't in line for another wife anyway. His first two were already more trouble than they were worth. Doris and he may not be as lovey-dovey as they once were, but their sex life was still up there. The proof was them having had six kids at last count. I joked with him about that old Skyhooks song You Only Love Me Because I'm Good in Bed was probably nearer the truth. He surprised me the other day by telling me that he divorced his first wife because she did a runner with the family's church pastor after only two months of their marriage. The SDA church would never live down the ignominy. Personally, I'd go hunting up dingos to keep the church's population down (Editor's note: NO ONE is exempt from the morbid humour of "the press": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Azaria_Chamberlain. Note especially the religion Of the Chamberlain family and the father, David's, occupation).

Gary asked us - as a favour to him, and his extended family - to take in as a ward, a young boy whose mother had deserted him. The boy's mother was the niece of his business partner, whose family got up on their high horse when she was found to have had a long-time lover as well as her husband, and the child was supposedly the lover's offspring. Personally, I believe it's a good man who knows his own father, and genetic testing was unknown then. The kid is four and a half, and had been traumatised firstly by his mother running off, and then by all the people who used to treat him affectionately who would now have nothing to do with him (nice folks, eh?).

We had a 'spot the immature ones' competition; and the boy wasn't the winner. We - that is, all the broody women that live with me, and myself - gave it some thought (nigh on to ten seconds, in all) and took him in. We treated Andrew as another one of the family and he treated us all with deep suspicion. All the people he had held with affection had deserted him. We, complete strangers, were treating him as if he has always been with us.

'The man is really ugly and has a wooden peg leg and no fingers on one hand, ' the boy thought. 'All the ladies are nice, but one of them is not pretty at all, really yucky. Another old one has a big fat belly. The man treats me nice, but I'm a bit afraid of him. He's a pirate.'

One day about a month after moving him in, I set him down and talked to him about the people Andrew was living with and his situation.

"Andrew, what do you like being called, Andrew or Andy?" I asked. "Andy it is, then. You know all about why you're living here don't you?" Andrew shook his head, "In case nobody ever told you, your mummy knew two men, who she loved. One was your daddy who she married but she also had a boyfriend, and she loved them both I believe. One day, someone told your daddy about her boyfriend. She left your daddy for some reason, to go with her boyfriend. She decided that you would be better off living with your daddy.

"The trouble is, Andy, some adults aren't very nice. It's the same as some kids aren't very nice. It turns out that you weren't your daddy's baby but the boyfriend's. Daddy's family kicked up a stink, and a friend of your daddy's family told them he knew some people who would look after you while everyone sorted out what they were going to do, especially if your mummy didn't come home again.

"Now, that may mean your mummy might turn up here next week, or they may not even tell her where you are living. It could be that you may live here the rest of your life, and we'd love to have you as you are a good bloke.

"A lot of the big girls who are living here are in that exact same position. Big Kim had a mummy who was my cousin. That mummy married a really, really good friend of mine. One day, when Kim was still in her mummy's tummy, her daddy got sick and died. Kimbo came to live with me when she was born. Her mummy ran away because her little girl reminded her of Kim's daddy and made her very sad. Kim is now my little girl, and we love each other very much. You know Kimbo; she's the real big girl with the orange hair.

"Gae is my wife. When she was just thirteen, she met a man who was at first nice to her then treated her very mean and gave her a baby. The man ran away but the police caught him and put him in gaol for a long, long time. Her little girl is Marilyn and you could definitely say that her daddy ran away from her. I became Marilyn's daddy when I married Gae. After that, I adopted Marilyn so she has become my daughter in every way. I love her very much, too. Gae is all fat now because she's going to have my baby and we are very, very happy.

"Did you know I'm a school teacher? Well, I am. You didn't really think I was a pirate, did you? Silly duffer! I'm going to take you up to the school where I used to teach, and get you enrolled to start there, to learn to read and write and add up numbers. All pretty hard stuff. I don't teach there anymore because I teach at the big kid's school, but I've still got lots of friends there.

"When I moved to the big school, some years ago, I met a girl there who was being treated very mean by her mummy and daddy. Her name is Tammy. It used be Tammy Scholes, but now it's Tammy Palmer. That's because I made her my daughter as well. They treated her so mean that she didn't want to do any schoolwork and acted pretty dumb.

"She asked me, because I was one of her teachers if I could make her smart. I worked hard with her, and she realised it was because she had a bad mummy and daddy. She moved in here with Gae and me, and we became her mummy and daddy. I think Tammy is the cleverest person in the house now, because she worked really hard.

"Veronica is Tammy's sister and she was treated very badly as well by the bad mummy and daddy. She ran away from home. One day, lots later, Ronnie came back trying to find her littlest sister Tammy to take her away from the bad mummy and daddy. She found Tammy living with Gae and me instead. Ronnie liked it so much here that she stayed. Ronnie is a pretty smart cookie as well. Now her name is Veronica Palmer because I adopted her, too.

"The other two girls are Tammy and Veronica's sisters. The bad mummy and daddy wouldn't let them go to school, and the way they treated them they got a little sick in the head. They are both working hard on school work now, and we help them. They live here, and I think they like it here. Their names are Jessica and Amy.

"Have you got something you'd like to ask me, Andy?"

"How did you get hurt?"

"Arrhh, I didn't tell you about Old Pirate Jack, did I? Well my name is John Palmer, and you can call me John or Mr Palmer or Pop as all my girls call me, except for Gae. Why do you think Gae doesn't call me Pop?"

"Because you're married to her, silly."

"I think that could be a good reason too. Gae calls me either 'Darling' or 'you idiot'; she's even been known to say 'you idiot Darling', which confuses me. I always call Gae 'Darling', because she's nobody's fool, except maybe for loving Old Pirate Jack. When I used to teach at the little school, all the kids called me Pirate Jack, because I look like a pirate don't I? If you want to, you can call me that. Marilyn used to call me that, when I taught her in the same school as you will be going to. My girl Kimbo went to that school, too.