greta

In the last week of August 1979 an overloaded white Kombi with South Australian plates crests a low hill on a dirt road in Greta, hits the bitumen at a small cross-road, noses into the driveway of an old farmhouse called Mayfield. My friend Rob, hearing of our troubled time in Adelaide, has invited us to share his house in north-east Victoria. Marilyn, the baby and I have no other place to go.

Rob leaves each morning to make theatre with a theatre-in-education team in Benalla. I register for work but don’t look for any. I wash nappies, sit with my new son who lies on a sheepskin on the wide verandah in the spring sun. Marilyn and I keep the Rayburn fired up, prepare macrobiotic fare using miso, soy curd, pickled radishes and plums.

When summer breaks I work for a couple of weeks on the hops up a dead-end valley at Myrrhee. It’s hot, prickly, unrewarding labour, smoko in the dappled shade our only relief. Greta endures 42 days of heat, no maximum below 30 degrees.

I sell the Kombi; we buy an HT Kingswood. We attach the trailer, drive to Melbourne, return with bulk supplies of macrobiotic staples: kero tins of tahini, miso and shoyu, bags of buckwheat, oats and rye. We dig a big vegie patch along the north fence of the home garden, pay a miniscule rent, save money though our income is the dole.

I feel no compunction about not working, feel privileged to share the first nine months of my son’s life, to cook for him, wash and nurture him. We unearth an old pram in an out-building, line it with his sheepskin, trundle up the road and back again at sunset. The dogs, Pod and her son Grogan, explore roadside ditches under orange sky.

Greta is a locality on a map—no shop, no pub, no main street—its only landmark a footy ground. In April I hear blokes imploring team-mates for short passes, handpasses, shepherds. I wander up for a squiz, ask some bloke if I can join the next practice session.

A fellow running warm-up laps beside me says a bloke called Gunna on the far wing reckons he knows me. Never heard of him. Even when he introduces himself it takes a minute to equate the burly centreman with the skinny bug-eyed kid I remember from school. Together we help turn a mediocre team into a premiership team.

In May Marilyn and I move from Greta to Eldorado on the other side of Wangaratta. My old friend Doctor Will has a small tumbledown weatherboard there in an almond orchard. He’s preparing to leave for a year at Casey Base in Antarctica. We are free to move in.

Rock on.