Mary

October is nearly done and dusted. I didn't get my wish for a wet month. I've had some highlights though, notably-

1. Picking dogwood and philadelphus (mock orange). I'll expand on this another time.

2. Watching young Ella (niece Annie's 3yo daughter) run to Jod and leap into his arms. Again, this is worthy of a blog post on its own another time.

3. Seeing the beech trees come into new leaf.

4. Calling on Mary yesterday and having coffee with her.

I had a phone call Sunday morning from Blossom, who'd had a call from Mary. Mary told Blossom that she hadn't seen me for ages and she missed me and she wondered if I was alright, and also that she had a friend who wanted to buy some honey. I told Blossom to tell Mary I'd call on her tomorrow, yesterday. Mary has never rung me direct. I don't know why.
Mary lives in Emerald. I have known her for some 15-20 years and I call on her every 3 months or so and give her a pot of honey. I first met her when I was picking rosemary in the front yard of a house in Kings Rd. A little lady walking down the footpath stopped to ask me what I was doing. She was dressed in black and wore a head scarf pulled tight over silver hair and spoke softly with a European accent. She explained that she used to pick rosemary where it protruded through the fence as she went past, but she didn't need to now, as she planted a cutting in her garden and now she had her own. I was welcome to come and pick some at her place if I wanted to, she said.
I next met Mary at Blossom's place. Mary was of Polish origin and both ladies had been married to Polish men. They were friends who supported each other over many years, a friendship forged by the harsh bond of having alcholic husbands. Mary was a widow, having escaped her violent husband some years earlier and hiding through winter in another friend's garage. Blossom's ex husband also died and she moved away but the two ladies, despite numerous grave health difficulties over the years, support of each other in spirit by phone.
The coffee was strong yesterday and the mug filled to the brim. A plate of ginger biscuits and two slices of almond bread was put in front of me and Mary talked, glad to have company. I gave her two jars of honey and, having more in the van, asked her who it was that wanted to buy honey. She said a Polish name, adding that there was not really an English equivalent, but it was like 'Joanee'.
I asked where 'Joanee' lived and Mary said Altona, and that she comes up to visit a couple of times a year.
"How do you know 'Joanee'?"
"She was on the boat from Germany with me in 1949. She's Polish also but we'd been in Germany for nearly ten years after being sent there to work in 1940. I was fifteen. It was no good going home to Poland after the war. Many who went back were packed straight on to trains and sent to Siberia."
As soon as I'd drunk the coffee my mug was refilled and Mary continued. I knew most of her story. She was sent initially with her three year old daughter to Bonegilla migrant camp and then Maribynong migrant hostel where she met her husband who was to father her other four children. Her eldest son, Joseph, followed in the footsteps of his father, also becoming alcoholic. Much to Mary's misfortune, after the father died the son came to live with her, which inflicted on her more than another decade of abuse. He drank himself to death two years ago. He was the same age as me, and a strikingly handsome young man studying phsycolgy at Monash when we first moved to Emerald. He took sister Meredith on dates a couple of times.
Mary showed me photos of Joey's grave in Macclesfield cemetery. The headstone was made by a family friend who worked at a stonemason's in Darwin. He grew up playing with Joey in Sunshine and was a lifelong friend. He too had a problem with alcohol but beat it, and he often asked Joe to come to Darwin and stop drinking, offering to help him beat it. When he heard Joe died he made the headstone and came with it all the way from Darwin at no cost to Mary.
I asked Mary once did she mind me calling her Mary when everyone else called her Maria (Blossom introduced her to me as Mary). She said no she didn't mind at all. She liked it. The father of her first child in Germany called her Mary, she said, and I reminded her of him. He was to marry her but his wife, thought dead, reappeared.
Mary found a photo to show me of herself and her daughter taken in 1950 not long after arriving in Australia. A photo of a pretty young lady with a ready warm smile, the same smile that still comes so easily. I'll visit her again soon.

Oh for a wet November!