Lad turned into a
Fish in the intermediate years of High School while no one was watching. Thin,
negligible boy, king of the pool suddenly. Like the tennis court, the swimming-pool
was an unknown during early years. There was in fact a tennis court partly
visible behind a high screened fence at the corner Anglican Church down from
the primary school. A pool was unimaginable. (Big Kum Miso later declared he would build a swimming-pool at the
new place he was raising out in Bundoora. Unlikely claim unsurprisingly never
fulfilled.)
Had there been a single excursion to a swimming pool during Primary? In High School swimming outings began toward the end of First Form and set off a hysterical reaction at home. Notes to the Sports Teacher, written by the young bank-teller who lived in the back bungalow with her newly-wed husband. — Oh Vera! My dear Vera!... The young new wife respectfully obliged her landlady. Dear Sir, Could you please excuse.... — Sign here Auntie.
A year or two prior mother's father had thrown himself in his winter great-coat off a pier in front of the second eldest's house on the water's edge in the old country. (Detailed forty years later.) Howling when the red-blue fringed Par Avion landed in the post-box. It brought back other, earlier howling. This had to stop; no more. — Stop it mother this instant! Sada! Odma! (Mimicking her own fierce insistence at whimpering.)
Wayne had a State ranking in breast-stroke. Of all things; no joke. Remarkable luck for an average, mediocre boy. Completely unchallengeable. In Primary School Wayne stood somewhere in the third or fourth rung of harmless, inconsequential boys. No football ability, nor even cricket. Athletics zero. (Later in High School Wayne began to develop some accomplishment even there. Was it Hop-step-and-jump? Basketball became a forte—again, entirely unknown in Primary.)
Kind of Fish-watery eyes even in junior school. In order to overcome some childhood malady suggested by the doctor; bodily strengthening? Young Wayne was much in need. Wayne Finlayson. Fish.
Twelve years of joint schooling; the first definite appearance at some indeterminate point in the second, higher level. Early days the name itself presented a problem.
“Way” was in order. But Nnn?... (Spelling the new language presented problems.)
Another irregular moniker. Wayne was the only one bearing named in junior years.
A father with a car was exceptional when most of the dads rode bicycles. Older father and mother. When the revelation, the delicate secret emerged, that one of the other boys, Bill Gledhill, was adopted—his parents not his real parents at all—a certain private suspicion fell on Wayne.
Mother was a dreadful liability in her widow's weeds and mangled English; there was however no doubt about her authenticity. With the window of the car down Wayne's father’s avuncular smile beaming unparently soft indulgence. None of the kids’ parents smiled like that. Years later again when it emerged that Wayne lived in the same street as Viddy, opposite Vid's house, the news seemed incredible. There was absolutely no truck between the pair—as there could not have been between the outstanding school cricket star—accomplished footballer to boot—and such a one. A sook and unliked, Viddy was in a class of his own.
Later again—there were many stages and developments in the unfolding—the last years of High School brought a mysterious attraction centred on Wayne by one of the teachers. A male intermediate Science teacher perfectly frank in his admiration.
What was that all about Wayne?... A boy groomed under the noses of his unsuspecting parents, the school administrators and councilors? Even in the last year of High School the idea of poofters seemed highly doubtful to a Jock. Was that for real? The Flower-power hippies were upturning all the categories. A couple of years higher up in school Paul Perov was alarming his Russian émigré parents getting around dressed as a girl.
Had there been a single excursion to a swimming pool during Primary? In High School swimming outings began toward the end of First Form and set off a hysterical reaction at home. Notes to the Sports Teacher, written by the young bank-teller who lived in the back bungalow with her newly-wed husband. — Oh Vera! My dear Vera!... The young new wife respectfully obliged her landlady. Dear Sir, Could you please excuse.... — Sign here Auntie.
A year or two prior mother's father had thrown himself in his winter great-coat off a pier in front of the second eldest's house on the water's edge in the old country. (Detailed forty years later.) Howling when the red-blue fringed Par Avion landed in the post-box. It brought back other, earlier howling. This had to stop; no more. — Stop it mother this instant! Sada! Odma! (Mimicking her own fierce insistence at whimpering.)
Wayne had a State ranking in breast-stroke. Of all things; no joke. Remarkable luck for an average, mediocre boy. Completely unchallengeable. In Primary School Wayne stood somewhere in the third or fourth rung of harmless, inconsequential boys. No football ability, nor even cricket. Athletics zero. (Later in High School Wayne began to develop some accomplishment even there. Was it Hop-step-and-jump? Basketball became a forte—again, entirely unknown in Primary.)
Kind of Fish-watery eyes even in junior school. In order to overcome some childhood malady suggested by the doctor; bodily strengthening? Young Wayne was much in need. Wayne Finlayson. Fish.
Twelve years of joint schooling; the first definite appearance at some indeterminate point in the second, higher level. Early days the name itself presented a problem.
“Way” was in order. But Nnn?... (Spelling the new language presented problems.)
Another irregular moniker. Wayne was the only one bearing named in junior years.
A father with a car was exceptional when most of the dads rode bicycles. Older father and mother. When the revelation, the delicate secret emerged, that one of the other boys, Bill Gledhill, was adopted—his parents not his real parents at all—a certain private suspicion fell on Wayne.
Mother was a dreadful liability in her widow's weeds and mangled English; there was however no doubt about her authenticity. With the window of the car down Wayne's father’s avuncular smile beaming unparently soft indulgence. None of the kids’ parents smiled like that. Years later again when it emerged that Wayne lived in the same street as Viddy, opposite Vid's house, the news seemed incredible. There was absolutely no truck between the pair—as there could not have been between the outstanding school cricket star—accomplished footballer to boot—and such a one. A sook and unliked, Viddy was in a class of his own.
Later again—there were many stages and developments in the unfolding—the last years of High School brought a mysterious attraction centred on Wayne by one of the teachers. A male intermediate Science teacher perfectly frank in his admiration.
What was that all about Wayne?... A boy groomed under the noses of his unsuspecting parents, the school administrators and councilors? Even in the last year of High School the idea of poofters seemed highly doubtful to a Jock. Was that for real? The Flower-power hippies were upturning all the categories. A couple of years higher up in school Paul Perov was alarming his Russian émigré parents getting around dressed as a girl.
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