Whole Wild World Read Online Free Page A

gleaming like a brand new party hat. For a time in my preschool years the blonde, attentive girl next door was mine. She was a little younger, small, but we were inseparable; technically, we lived under the same roof. My parents bought a house on the north side of Belmore in partnership with Teta Danica. The house, on the corner of Adelaide and Cecilia Streets, was divided into two separate two-bedroom residences with their own entrances. The yards were common, but because we lived in the front we played there more often. There was a laundry shared between families and an outside toilet if you were really busting.
    The back flat was rented out, as was the house in Chalmers Street, which my parents were able to hold onto. This was capital accumulation, my parents’ up-yours to communism in the steady 1960s.
    Our empire was expanding, but not in the way Joso would have liked. He had his eye on buying a business, such as a corner shop or grocery store, perhaps even a newsagency. But Milenka did not want the seven-day drudgery that came with shop life for herself or her sons. I first heard having a shop had been on the cards just after I started school. For years I held on tight to a vision of a perfect life: an endless feast of lollies and ice-creams, as well as commandeering the cash register and being in charge.
    I didn’t know we owned the flat where Ineska lived with her parents Rudy and Eva and sister Mary, who was Å ime’s age. I thought what a great guy my dad was, fixing their bathroom and front screen door. They were like us but different. Rudy called my dad ‘Jozo’ rather than Joso, the only person who did that. They spoke the same language with my parents but among themselves used words I’d never heard. They were Slovenian.
    Ineska didn’t say much and I hogged the talk-space. In my head, we were kind of married, or the serious stage before that – there were teddies, dolls and dinkies in our union. I took charge, given I was about a head taller and good at making up games. But like a lot of couples we didn’t sleep in the same bed.
    Our flat was tight, even by the modest standards of the day. I slept in a cot in my parents’ bedroom, while Å ime and Teta had single beds in the other room. The only decent space to play in was in the front entrance, a sunroom that had been filled in and modified. It was inside but could be closed off from the main house. Ineska and I made toys, painted, looked at books and had tea parties. Å ime and Mary were at school, and Mama looked after both of us for a time while Eva, blonde and kind of glamorous in my reckoning, worked.
    Rudy had a wild look in his eyes, what I’d now call hypnotic, like Rasputin’s. I was both mesmerised by and frightened of him. Compared to my dad, Rudy was small. He was better than Tata at fixing things such as broken toys. Rudy would come home at dinnertime, speaking loudly and angrily. He would sway and shout at Eva, who would shout back at him. It was tricky leaving their flat on those occasions. I was scared and didn’t want to be there, but I didn’t know how to leave either; I just wanted to be invisible so he wouldn’t be angry with me as well. I don’t know if he ever hit the girls, but I remember them crying and clinging to their mother, thinking they should come and stay with us even though we didn’t have spare beds. I’d tell my parents what I’dseen and was able to mimic the way Rudy stumbled around and how his words came out sounding funny.
    â€˜Show us how Rudy walks,’ my mother would say and I’d stiff-leg it around the lounge-room. They’d laugh and so I’d do it over and over.
    We were generally healthy but I often had to go to the eye doctor. From birth I had a turn in my right eye, which was progressively becoming more pronounced. I was examined by a variety of doctors and there were many tests to get through. By the time I was three, it