Painted Love Letters by Catherine Bateson

Before and After

    Dad said that in Nurralloo we were surrounded by Philistines who wouldn’t know a good painting if it jumped up and bit them, but at the pub they hung one of his small watercolours; a sketch he called it, and Dad got free beers. He said by the time I was sixteen we’d be rich. We’d celebrate my birthday in Paris, the city of art and lovers. Mum said, ‘Don’t put ideas in her head, Dave Grainger. Chrissie, don’t listen to him,’ and flicked her tea towel at him but later she pulled down one of Dad’s art books and showed me paintings of people dancing in Paris and a Paris pub which looked a lot posher than the Station Hotel.
    I didn’t want to go to Paris, even though the pictures looked nice. We’d only been in Nurralloo for one-and-a-half-years. I’d had to change schools halfway through the year and explain to everyone all over again that my father was an artist and that’s why he stayed at home and didn’t work like the other dads, driving trucks for the council or farming. I’ve already been in three schools and lived in one city, one big town, seven houses, one flat and a caravan park since I was born.
    When I couldn’t sleep I used to lie in bed counting them on my fingers and trying to remember each place. I couldn’t remember the first couple of houses of course, because I was just a baby. The first place I could really remember was Nan’s in Sydney. There was a pale couch and I was never ever to put my feet on it. I had to wipe my dirty shoes on a mat that said WELCOME at the front door with a cat curled up under the words. Dad said the mat was false advertising.
    Then I can remember a caravan park somewhere — it was actually in New South Wales but I can’t remember the drive to get there or anything except the walking to the toilet block in the night and how it was kind of scary but kind of nice and once we saw a possum. And you had to have a shower, not a bath. Then the flat — but all I can remember is watching the television and a big fight between Mum and Dad. The flat was too small, Mum said, your father couldn’t work and he was very unhappy. Then there were two or three houses edging up the New South Wales Coast towards Queensland — I get them mixed up because we didn’t stay in any of them very long. Then we did this jump — Dad showed me on the map — and ended up in Taylor Street, Toowoomba where Dad went off to work nearly every day.
    I remember Taylor Street because I started school while we lived there and went right through Grade One and nearly all the way through Mrs Dean’s Second Grade. There were roses in the front garden, lots of them. I had my photo taken by one of Dad’s friends who taught with him out at the college. He taught photography and my father taught print-making. And I got a brand new bike with a little purple basket for my birthday. I kept the bike even though it is too little for me to ride anymore. I kept it in case Mum had another baby and she nearly did, but something went wrong and it was born too early.
    Then we moved outside Toowoomba and Dad stopped going to work every day although he still drove in a couple of times a week. I didn’t have to finish that year at school because it would have been a waste of time. Mum and Dad argued again but it wasn’t because he didn’t have a studio. And Mum sat in the dark a lot, or hugged me so tightly I couldn’t breathe. It had to do with the baby but I didn’t like it much, although I knew I had to stay very still and let her do it.
    Then, we moved to Nurralloo and I had to start all over again, but this is the best house we’ve ever lived in because we’ve got a dog called Bongo, Dad’s got a studio-shed, Mum’s got her own room to dream in and I’ve got a bedroom with a door on to the veranda which means I can go and look at the stars at night. One day, when I know