The Summer of ’82 Page 9

  So we caught the train as far as it went, and then rode our BMXs the rest of the way. We all had backpacks with our stuff in it. Eventually we made it, but not after rewarding ourselves at the Top Shop, where we feasted on sausage rolls and milkshakes. We got to the beach house and then realised we had nothing to do. This should have been the time of our lives, but we were just sitting around reading war comics again – maybe this time Banzai! or Kill or Be Killed!

  As always when young people have nothing to do, we soon turned on each other. Much like we used to do on Scout camps, we played tricks on each other. One day Wookey rode his bike to the shop to get some important supplies, like Chicken Twisties or a Milo Bar. Unbeknownst to him, we followed him to the shop, stole his bike and rode it back to the beach house. We then hid his bike in his bed, under the doona. I know, hilarious, but we were very young and very stupid.

  Wookey took the prank in his stride and paid everybody back in slow increments. I was sitting on the toilet a bit later when a hose came through the window and sprayed me with water. Again, hilarious stuff.

  We had an old record player at the house, and Trev’s record collection had somehow made its way to the Cape too. So we were treated to a bit of Band on the Run and some Chicago – oh, awesome. I had found a Noddy book at a church fete. Better yet, it was a Noddy book that came with a free record called ‘I’m a Little Noddy Man and I Always Nod my Head’. These books with records were big in the 1970s; they’d have labels saying, ‘SEE the pictures, HEAR the record, READ the book.’ Anyway, since Noddy had the nickname of … well, Noddy, we all thought my find was beyond hilarious. This was going to be unbelievable.

  I put the single on and turned it up really loud. This annoying childlike voice sang, ‘I’m a little Noddy man and I always nod my head.’ And I played it over and over.

  Noddy wasn’t having it. He never liked his nickname. Nicknames are a funny thing – you normally get the one you don’t want. Glenn was so skinny he got called ‘Wilba the Worm’. Because I was his twin brother and somewhat plumper, I was given the nickname ‘Fats Wilbur’. I know, quite creative but also quite hurtful, which is what nicknames were when you were seventeen. So Noddy was called Noddy because he looked a lot like the Enid Blyton character from Toy Town. And the nickname became permanent one Scout camp when he wore a blue beanie.

  So we all stood around laughing at this ridiculous record, which went like this:

  I’m a little Noddy man and I always nod my head.

  Except of course when I’m asleep, cuddled up in bed.

  Noddy stormed in and grabbed the single, then smashed it on the ground.

  ‘Hey, that was my record!’ I said.

  ‘You’re all dickheads!’ he yelled. ‘All of you – all dickheads!’

  He was really upset. He ran outside and went to the public phone box on the corner of the street. We followed him and stood outside, from where we could hear him talking.

  ‘Dad,’ he sobbed, ‘can you come and pick me up?’

  There was silence as Noddy listened. No doubt his dad was saying something like, ‘Why, what’s happening? Thought you were having the time of your life?’

  Noddy just yelled into the phone, ‘They’re all dickheads, Dad! They’re all dickheads!’ He slammed the phone down and pushed past us to go and get his stuff.

  We all went very quiet. The guilt overtook me – I felt terrible. Sure, I had cried when they hosed me down in the toilet, but I’d done it behind closed doors and then composed myself when I walked back out, pretending it was the funniest thing ever to be drenched while making my ablutions.

  Noddy came back with his bag and then rode off on his bike. We stood outside yelling after him. ‘Noddy, come back! It’s not that bad … Where are you going?’

  But he kept riding. He was right: we were all dickheads.

  The holiday was ruined after that. Not that we could blame Noddy; our Lord of the Flies atmosphere had become too much. Noddy had always been our leader. He was the tough guy who seemed invincible. He was the guy in primary school who had put two cans of Aerogard in the incinerator and blown the door off. He was the guy in high school who, when the maths teacher hit him, struck him back. He was the guy who, the night before our last day of school, had broken in and stolen the skeleton from the science class, and then set it up out the front of the school with the name of our recently departed vice-principal hanging around its neck. Nothing ever seemed to bother Noddy. He had never turned up to class much, was the life of the party and everyone loved him. But now he was gone and we were left to stew in our juices.

  We struggled on to New Year’s Eve, but no matter how many war comics we read – Tally-ho! Cop That, Jerrys! – nothing seemed fun anymore. The most excitement we had was when we played cards: we had a Uno marathon and a canasta marathon, and then someone made some nachos. New Year’s Eve was looking very bleak. We were all underage so we couldn’t go to the pub – not that there was one at Cape Paterson. And we were too old to be hanging around the caravan park waiting to kiss some teenagers at midnight.

  I woke up on the thirty-first of December, 1982, and decided to act on my impulses. I’d had a dream involving Sonia, and I wanted to go to Mildura and see her. I announced this at breakfast – Coco Pops, of course – to the guffaws of my so-called friends.

  ‘So how are you going to get there?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘What about our party tonight?’

  ‘Who cares?’

  ‘Are you just going to leave us here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t even know her last name!’

  Actually, I did. I had rung the head Guide of the Sunraysia district, and she had gladly identified my Sonia as Sonia Edmunds, the daughter of Anne Edmunds, a local schoolteacher. With that information in hand, I made a quick trip to the post office, where I asked for the Mildura White Pages and located the Edmunds family’s address in a matter of minutes. Who needed the internet? This was pre-Facebook tracking down of a lost love – or, as it is more commonly known, stalking.

  Leaving my bike at the beach house, I announced to my friends that I planned to hitchhike to Mildura. Like sharpies and CB radio, hitchhiking was big in the 1970s and continued on in small bursts in the ’80s. I had hitchhiked home several times when I had missed the last train. Once I got picked up by a hippy couple in a van that resembled the one in Scooby-Doo – technically known as the Mystery Machine. I sat in the back, which was fitted out with shagpile carpet. What’s more, the van had its very own Scooby, except it was a massive Alsatian called Satan which kept growling at me.

  Hitchhiking was a cheap way to get around and have ‘a bit of fun’. Like a lot of things that were considered fun in the ’70s and early ’80s, these days it’s considered very dangerous. Other examples are Dale Buggins–inspired dirtbike jumps, driving home drunk, and feeding your kid Tang for breakfast.

  As I left the beach house, Zonk rocked up on a new motorbike. Oh no, someone gave him a motorbike.

  ‘Where’s the party?’ he yelled.

  ‘Back in there,’ I shouted.

  I heard him being greeted by the other guys. I’m pretty sure I heard him ask, ‘Where’s Noddy?’

  But I couldn’t worry about Zonk or Noddy or Wookey or any of my other friends with weird names. I was on a mission: to hitchhike from Cape Paterson to Mildura in one day.

  First I got picked up by a family of holidayers who took me into Wonthaggi. I went to the petrol station, where a trucker gave me a lift all the way to the outskirts of Melbourne. From there it took a few hours but finally I got a lift with a travelling salesman to the other side of town, where the Hume Highway started. I then got a lift with a farmer who took me to Bendigo, and from there a group of young guys who were going on a basketball camp gave me a lift to Swan Hill. The guys asked around their campsite and found a couple who were driving to Mildura that night.

  So after leaving Cape Paterson at ten a.m. on New Year’s Eve, I made it
to Sonia’s doorstep by eight-thirty p.m. Who needed a car or a train ticket from a nosey stationmaster? Not me. I just risked my life to see the love of my life. Thought I’d make her night and surprise her. And surprised she was.

  Sonia’s house was in the suburbs of Mildura, in quite a nice street. It was exactly as I expected: she was a nice girl living in a nice house. I rang the doorbell and waited. A middle-aged man answered the door, who I assumed was her dad. ‘Yes, can I help you?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, I’m here to see Sonia.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m David O’Neil, from Melbourne.’

  ‘Right.’ He looked confused. ‘And how do you know Sonia?’

  Wow, I didn’t expect to get the third degree. Surely she had mentioned me?

  ‘Um, I met her at a Guides camp.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll see if she’s around.’

  What? Of course she’d be around. Where else would she be but waiting for me?

  I could hear some talking inside, then a middle-aged woman came to the door: her mum. ‘So you met Sonia on a Guides camp … But you’re not a Guide.’

  ‘No, I’m a Venturer Scout,’ I said, ‘and I was playing in the band at the camp. That’s where I met her.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’

  This was not what I expected. I had imagined Sonia opening the door and embracing me and giving me a passionate kiss.

  Mrs Edmunds went back into the house, and finally Sonia came to the front door. She was dressed in a tartan skirt with black stockings and a mohair cardigan, and she looked better than ever. It was like she knew I was coming.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she said.

  ‘I thought I’d surprise you. You said I should come and see you sometime.’

  ‘Did I? Well, um, it’s good to see you.’

  As immature as I was, I could tell she wasn’t really happy to see me.

  ‘I got you this badge,’ I said, and I held out a Blondie badge I’d bought for her. I tried to pin it on her cardigan but she pulled away as a car drove up out the front. A young man got out and walked up the front path. He ignored me completely. ‘You ready, Sonia?’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  The young man then looked across at me.

  Sonia said, ‘Oh, Chris, this is David. He’s a … family friend from the city.’

  Family friend? No, I was the love of her life!

  ‘Right,’ Chris said. ‘Have a good one.’

  ‘See you, Mum, Dad!’ Sonia yelled, and she walked away with Chris. I was left standing there on the front porch. Her mum and dad joined me and we all waved as Sonia and Chris drove off.

  To say the moment was awkward would be an understatement. I didn’t know what to do. Mr Edmunds looked at my backpack. ‘I take it you’ve got nowhere to stay?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And do you have a tent?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought you said you were a Scout?’

  ‘I’m a Venturer Scout, actually.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll lend you our tent, and I’ll take you down to the caravan park.’

  Wow, this was not going how I had planned it.

  Mr Edmunds yelled into the house. ‘Malcolm, get us the two-man tent.’ Then he went inside and had a conversation with his wife. Malcolm – who was obviously Sonia’s younger brother – came out holding a tent. He was about fifteen and had a smirk on his face.

  ‘Gee, looks like Sonia led you up the garden path.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘I heard everything – I was listening in on you guys. So she said to come up and see her, huh?’

  ‘Yeah, I thought she really liked me.’

  ‘Well, she might have, but that’s her boyfriend, Chris.’

  What? I felt like I was going to crumble on the spot. That was supposed to be me.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Malcolm said. ‘I don’t know how much she really likes him. He’s a bit of a dickhead. Mum and Dad don’t like him. They say he’s uneducated.’

  Great! This was my in. Here I was, on the verge of starting some kind of degree – if I passed my HSC.

  Mr Edmunds walked out with his car keys. ‘All right, son, the caravan park it is.’

  He drove me to the Apex Caravan Park, which was right on the river. It was actually an excellent location, and lots of young people were frolicking in the river and having fun, even though it was late. But I was having no fun.

  Malcolm and Sonia’s dad helped me put up the tent. I dropped a few bits of information, such as that I was going to uni next year. ‘Probably do law, like my brother,’ I said. How would they know Trev had dropped out? ‘Or maybe medicine.’ They seemed like nice people, and Malcolm definitely felt sorry for me, but they were quite comfortable leaving me alone in a caravan park.

  So it was that I spent New Year’s Eve 1982 in a two-man tent in a caravan park in Mildura. I lay there and heard people all around me drinking, singing and celebrating. I got up once to go to the toilet, and a woman spotted me and yelled out, ‘Happy new year, mate!’ I could barely mumble a response. ‘Yeah, happy new year.’ Really, I wanted to yell, ‘There’s nothing happy about this year! Sonia has driven off with some idiot called Chris, and I’m stuck here alone in a tent!’

  I heard people counting down the seconds to midnight: ‘Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one … Happy new year!’ And then a lot of yelling, screaming and a few bottles smashing. It sounded like a riot was going on outside my tent. This was probably the worst night of my life.

  I buried my face into the pillow of my lilo and cried. With no one else around, I just let it all out. Then I heard a hissing noise. Oh no, not a snake! That would be the ultimate way to end the night. But no, it was coming from my lilo … the Blondie badge I’d bought for Sonia had punctured the rubber. Hisssssss.

  This was definitely the worst night of my life.

  JANUARY

  How did that song by Pilot about January go? Who cares, I was lying in a tent in Mildura on New Year’s Day 1983, feeling very sorry for myself. No song by Pilot could sum up my feelings. I couldn’t even bring myself to do what teenage boys usually do when they’re alone in a tent. I felt hung-over, even though I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol.

  I got out of bed and wandered down to the shower block. Ah, the glamour of being poor and unwanted in Mildura. I had a long shower and thought about what my heroes might do in this situation. Who were my heroes? Well, in no particular order, the Six Million Dollar Man, Paul Hogan, Peter Garrett, Simon Le Bon, Devo, Bob Hawke and Noddy. My friend, not the toy. And then the whole Noddy incident came rushing back to me. So I had lost my best friend and my girlfriend within a week. Okay, she was only my girlfriend in my mind; in her mind I was a ‘family friend’.

  I knew one thing that my heroes would never have done: they wouldn’t give up or sell out. (All right, since then Peter and Bob may have sold out just a little bit … oh, and Paul and Simon too. But Devo have kept their credibility intact!) I had one card up my sleeve, and that was the knowledge that Sonia’s parents didn’t like the boyfriend, and nor did little brother Malcolm.

  I found a phone box near the caravan park and called Sonia’s house. This was a rite of passage for all young men dating in the 1980s. To ask a girl out, you had to ring her house. There were no mobiles, Facebook, Twitter, Tinder, Grindr, texting or sexting. There was just the landline. And it was almost guaranteed that when you rang a girl, her dad would pick up.

  ‘Edmunds household, Doug speaking.’

  ‘Ah, hello, Mr Edmunds, this—’

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Ah, it’s David O’Neil.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You gave me a lift to the caravan park last night. I have your tent.’

  ‘Oh, yes, David. How was it?’

  ‘Um, yeah, good.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks for that.’

  ‘Okay. What do you want now?’

  �
�Um, is Sonia there?’

  ‘Hmm, she had a late night last night …’ Thanks for rubbing it in, Doug. ‘I’ll try to rouse her. Hang on.’ Doug put the phone down and I heard him yell, ‘Sonia, it’s that simple kid from the city.’

  What? Simple? I thought I told him I was going to do law.

  ‘Hello?’ a sleepy voice said.

  I could feel my spirits lifting. ‘Sonia, it’s me, David.’

  ‘Oh, hi. What’s going on?’

  ‘I’m just hanging out at the caravan park.’

  ‘Right. I’m sorry about last night, but you could have told me you were coming.’

  ‘Yeah, I thought I’d surprise you.’

  ‘Well, you did. Hey, why don’t you come and see me in a few hours. Be good to catch up.’

  YES! I was back. Last night was just a temporary glitch in the matrix. This was my chance to shine, as they say on those stupid talent shows. And as they also say, I was at the start of a remarkable journey of self-discovery.

  I put my best shirt on (well, the best one I could find in my backpack), rehearsed my lines (‘Probably do law, like my brother’) and put some gel in my hair. I looked at myself in the mirror of the shower block and said, ‘You can do it, Dave.’ The naked bloke washing his clothes in a bucket in the shower didn’t seem to mind at all.

  I waited an hour or so and then walked quite a distance to get back to Sonia’s house. Malcolm was out the front, washing the family car. I liked Malcolm; he was like me, just two years younger. I too once had to wash the family car, and have Dad come and inspect it before I’d get my two-dollar note.

  ‘Dave,’ he said when he saw me. ‘How was the caravan park?’

  ‘Yeah, okay.’

  ‘Hey,’ he said, and beckoned me to come closer. ‘Sonia had a big fight with Chris last night. I heard them out the front as he was dropping her off.’

  This kid was a one-man surveillance team.

  ‘Really? Was it about me?’

  Malcolm looked at me with a smirk. ‘Nah, of course not. When it hit midnight Chris pashed Sonia, and then he pashed her best friend, Donna, but he lingered a bit too long.’