Part 42: The Incident in Adelaide
I was 16 and my Uncle’s 50th birthday was coming up. They were having a big shindig at the local RSL for him and my mum was planning to fly up there for a few days with a childhood friend of theirs. The date got closer and the childhood friend was no longer going. My mum didn’t want to fly alone, so she planned to drive. She didn’t want to drive alone, so she asked me if I would come with her.
“It’ll be a good opportunity to get your hours up on your learners.” She said.
A very good point and it wasn’t as if I had other things going on in my life at the time. I wasn’t even going to school! More importantly, I wanted her to be there for her brother's birthday, so I said I’d go with her.
One day, the phone rings. It’s my Aunty in South Australia. Let’s call her Ursula (mainly because she looks like Ursula the Sea Witch from the Little Mermaid & yes I told her that when I was 6 years old and no she hasn’t like me since.)
“Guess what! I’m coming up with mum!” I said eagerly.
“WHAT?! YOU ARE NOT!” she said.
“Oh um….” I put my hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and yelled out “MUUUUUUM.”
Mum took the phone and I ran off into my room feeling like unwanted and rejected. Eventually mum came into my room and said “If you’re not able to come then I’m not going.” but I said “I don’t wanna go - she obviously doesn’t want me there.”
The next day, I got a call from my uncle apologising on her behalf saying that it was wrong, that she shouldn’t have reacted that way and finished with “It’s my birthday, I get to choose who comes and I want you to be here with your mum celebrating with me.”
“I don’t want to cause any problems Uncle G.” I said
“You won’t be. Everything’ll be alright when your here.”
“Alright, I’ll come.”
“Rippadoozy!” he said.
A few days later I get a call from their daughter, Rhiannon, whom I haven’t spoken to since she stayed at our place with her creepy and handsy boyfriend back when I was 14. This guy was gross. He was your typical ‘feeder’ type boyfriend of a morbidly obese woman. Not skinny but not fat. No muscle tone. Pale. Balding with untreated psoriasis. Swollen gums. He would always manage to put himself in a position where he would have to rub on me when he would walk past. For example, if I’m standing on the phone in the doorway, instead of making himself visible so I could move out of the way, he would appear out of nowhere. I would feel his hands on my hips and the crotch of his jeans scrape my butt as he walked past.
“Hey Em, so I hear you’re coming up to SA for dad’s birthday. Listen, so I’ve spoken to your mum and she’s agreed with it; how do you feel about staying with us in Adelaide for a few days while your mum goes up to Roxby to see dad? Your mum said it was a good idea and my folks are happy with it too. It’ll be cool, we’ll go into Adelaide and we’ll show you around - whattya reckon?”
I was keen in the slightest to stay with them, but she said she’d spoken to my mum and she was onboard with it, so I said yes.
“Great. I’ll call my parents and let them know.” She said.
That was the last time I ever spoke to her.
Later that night, I was in bed and I heard mum coming in the front door at around 11pm. She came into my room and sat on the edge of my bed.
“I don’t want you to stay at Rhiannon’s” she said.
“I don’t want to either but I’m only staying because I thought you wanted me to stay there?” I said
“No, Rhiannon said that you wanted to stay there & that it was your idea?” she said
“Not a chance. No way would I want to actually stay there.”
“I knew something wasn’t right!” Mum said. “I’ll call Gary tomorrow.”
Well, that started a massive debacle. I got called a ‘lying bitch’ amongst other things but my mum and I knew the truth, I think Gary too but sadly he’s married to the sea witch so he has to take her side.
“Ma, I don’t even want to go anymore.” I said
“I know, but we have to now. Plus I don’t want to drive alone.”
“But Mum, first they don’t want me to come - now this!? It’s going to be a disaster if I’m there!”
“We’re going!” She said. “It’s a matter of principle now”
We went. It’s a 14 hour drive mind you. So we did it in 2 days. The first day we drove Melbourne to Adelaide and the second we drove Adelaide to Roxby. During the journey from Adelaide to Roxby we even drove past Rhiannon and her boyfriend on Stuart Hwy. Even speeding past at 100km an hour Mum and I both saw Rhiannon aggressively flipping us the bird!
“OMG, can you believe that?! How juvenile! And that’s coming from a 16 year old!” I said. I looked over at mum and she was silently sobbing.
“That’s my own niece” she sobbed.
It was heartbreaking to see. It just made me even more pissed off and even more eager to get this week over and done with and get back home.
Thankfully the week was cut short. After the party, which was really just a dinner at the RSL, there were arrangements for all of us to visit their son, who was as equally delightful as his sister, at the Port Augusta Prison where he was serving yet another sentence for armed robbery. One of his previous sentences was for robbing a local sports club. He stole all the Four’N’Twenty Pies and Sausage Rolls out of the freezer and took the trophies ‘to try to sell the gold.’ Gold. He thought trophies were made from actual gold. I’m telling you, these kids (actually they are in their late 20’s) they aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.
We visit the one in prison, then we drive to Adelaide where we are staying at someone's house, I can’t remember who. We carried our bags inside and into our rooms.
“Rhiannon is coming over dinner” Ursula says to my mum
“I’m not comfortable with that Ursula” Said mum.
“You need to get over it!” said Ursula
“How would you react if one of my kids stuck their finger up at you! You would be ropeable!” Said mum as she was reenacting the scene but actually just giving the finger to Ursula.
She cackled. “Oh, get oh-ver-it Margaret” (You can see where their kids get their charm) “And you.” She said to pointing to me. “What you don’t realise Emily is that phone call you had with Rhiannon was a 3 way call!” she said
“Okay?” I said confused
“So actually, we heard everything.”
“Great, then you would have heard what actually happened!”
“YOU SAID YES!”
“I never said that I didn’t say yes! I did say yes - but only because Rhiannon told me that she’d already decided with my mum about it!”
“Oh please!” She said.
Fighting that lump in my throat, I ran off into the room. I wasn’t capable of handling any kind of confrontation at 16 and I couldn’t hide the fact either. I get a heat rash on around my neck and chest and I get all ‘beetroot faced’. It’s highly embarrassing. My mum is also one of the least confrontational people I know, so she wasn’t far behind me.
“Grab your bags. We’re going home” She said
“Finally!” Let’s get the fuck outta here!” I said
Ursula was still harping on while we were taking our bags outside. Mums brother helped us load our things and said he would meet us down the road. So we drove a little ways and pulled into bustop.
“See ya round like a rissole!” said Uncle G, talking as if nothing had happened.
“See ya Uncle G. Sorry about all this, I shouldn’t have come hey?.”
“Hey, this has nothing to do with you, ok? This isn’t your fault.” He said assuringly.
“But Aunty Ursula said…”
“Don’t you worry about what she said.” He said.
I got in the car, and watched mum say goodbye to her brother.