My sister and I had just finished primary school and we were at the beginning of the long school break. I had a dreadful feeling that I might end up as 'the niece' for a while yet . . . and so it was.
Francesca dubbed me 'Babs', short for Barbara, of course. She said it would be easier as my family nickname of 'babe' was pretty similar. The babe came about because I was always the shortest in the family - for some reason I couldn't understand, I was usually a couple of centimetres shorter than my twin sister.
We got through Christmas - no presents, of course, but a donated food hamper enabled us to have a reasonable Christmas dinner.
Early in the new year, Mum started to get sick. The worry and the stress were becoming too much for her.
I confronted Dad in an angry outburst. "You have to do something. Just going down to the club to drink beer and hope that something is going to fall into your lap is bloody useless. You have to get out and look, door to door, if necessary. Find some sort of work, anything."
He got up out of his chair, his face suffusing with rage. I thought he was going to hit me and perhaps he was. Fran was hanging onto my arm pleading, "Please, please."
My father shouted at me, "You don't understand, you stupid brat. You don't know how it feels to be the breadwinner and not be able to provide for your family. You're utterly fucking clueless."
"Okay," I yelled back in angry despair, "You feel bad. But that's just not good enough, you have to do something, not just feel bad. This is killing Mum."
Tears of rage were coursing down my cheeks. Fran was still holding onto me, also crying.
He stood there glaring at me, clenching and unclenching his fists, then he turned and stomped out the back door, slamming it closed with a bang.
He did do something. Three days later he left on the bus to go out west to do seasonal work, picking fruit.
His first pay went into our bank account nine days later. "Oh, thank God," exclaimed Mum.
She immediately used a lot of it to pay our most pressing bills and, always very honest, advised the welfare people of our new improved circumstances. Of course, the welfare payments were stopped.
YOU ARE READING
Babs
Short StoryA story of a boy-to-girl transition brought about by hard times and betrayal. But there is an emergence from the struggles, amelioration and ultimately contentment. This story has some similarities to one of my others, but it is different enough to...
