“I’m a pensioner. How much to mow the grass?” I suggested I come around; a time was set for the following Tuesday.
The place was locked up tighter than Fort Knox. There was no front gate, but a high, locked metal barrier divided off the front and back yards. I rang the bell and a slight, white-haired ‘granny’ opened the door behind the locked security grill. I identified myself and was told to “Hang on; I’ll go and unlock the side gate. I’ll meet ya there.” A minute later and “Hello, I’m Marj.” Two small children were hanging around her legs; one I reckon was about two, sucking her thumb earnestly, big blue eyes full of enquiring wonder at the stranger talking to Gran.
I was introduced to Stevie, I thought about four and Charlotte, the blue-eyed thumb sucker. Both were forcibly held back while I was quickly ushered through the barrier. It was secured behind me, despite the pleas from both children to go and join the other kids in the street.
It was a huge, bare backyard; long, matted, drying grass and little else, reflecting an allotment at the end of a cul de sac – narrow frontage and wide back. It must have been nearly seventy metres, from side to side.
We established a ‘mate’s rate’ for the mowing, and over the next couple of years, I learnt to appreciate the strengths of this gritty powerhouse. Three grandkids living with her, two daughters, both enjoying ‘Her Majesty’s’ pleasure and an aged pension to cover all necessaries. She held a pervading mistrust of the world, balanced against a kindness that flowed up and around her. There was an occasional sense of humour.
The third child, Bailey was maybe thirteen. He was sometimes present during my visits. He loved mechanics and I found him an old mower to fiddle with. I saw evidence that he had got it working, but he’d disappeared. Marg told me he went to Queensland, to be with his dad.
Her mission, as she put it, was to break ‘the cycle’; to provide a safe, happy environment for the ‘littuns’. It meant a fairly isolated existence for them, but she was determined to minimise the influence of her disadvantage on the kids.
We occasionally talked, a glass of water midway through mowing provided some conversational insights into her world. I gathered she’d had her unfair share of tribulations. The kids occasionally played outside during my mowing, but not often. Marg’s eyes were ever watchful!
I had to remove a couple of fruit trees at another job. I asked Marg if she could use them. The apricot and peach trees were being regularly watered and fertilised by the children and in my final year, after harvest, they helped me do a light prune.
I retired. I now help to look after my own two grandkids, one or two nights a week. It is a delight, but an aging body constrains capacities. An admiring memory of Marj surfaces.