Bronwyn Rennex - Life With Birds

First published in Australia in 2022
by Upswell Publishing
Perth, Western Australia
upswellpublishing.com

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 , no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

Copyright 2022 by Bronwyn Rennex

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

9780645247978 (paperback)
9781743822456 (ebook)

Front and back covers: Maree in our front yard, circa 1969, photographer unknown

Cover design by Chil3, Fremantle

In loving memory of my father,

John Renfrew Rennex

19271980

and my mother,

Elsie Josephine Rennex

19241991

Bronwyn Rennex

Bronwyn Rennex is a writer, artist and arts professional. She recently completed a Master of Arts (Research) in Creative Writing at the University of Sydney and awarded the Dr Colin Roderick Prize in Australian Literature, for the best thesis on a topic in Australian Literature. Her poems have been published in Cordite Poetry Review and her photographs have been exhibited widely and are held in private and public collections.

Until 2017, she was Co-Director of Stills Gallery in Sydney, where she worked with some of Australias most celebrated artists. More recently she has worked as an arts worker/ consultant in Arnhem Land.

Wednesday April 4 1979

We had a maths test and a hist science test today.

I cant think of anything else to right, oh yes I can besides phillip bow & dean mccarthy someone else likes danae, I wonder who.

Pretty boring day, huh?

Thursday April 5 1979

NOTHING

HAPPENED

Thursday April 12

Forgot to write

Friday April 13 1979

Forgot to write

Sunday January 6th 1980

Jennis not as bad as I made out. Every bodys gone away so Ive been going out with Jenni. We went to a disco in martin place last night. We met three guys. I got the spunky one and Jenni got a real dag but I felt weak and we were both gonna run off (I didnt want to go) but Jenni met this other guy and so she went off with him and I went off with this guy called David John Rafter and hes pretty good looking and hes really tall we had a good time.

January 24 Thurs 1980

Last night my dad died. I just cant believe it.

You never think its gonna happen to you and then it does.

Everyones really upset. I was crying all night.

He died of a heart attack about past 12 last night.

The thing is,
its not just me.
Im one star,
in a galaxy.

On Wednesday 23 January 1980, when I was fifteen, I was woken by the sound of a dog howling. I lay in my bed listening to it for a long time. It went on, and on. Other dogs joined in. The whole neighbourhood seemed to be howling.

I got up to see if anyone else had noticed. My Uncle Gordon was there.

He didnt live with us. What was he doing there?

He was walking down the hall towards me. Before he got to me,

I thought to myself,

Dont let it be him that tells me.

Im sorry, pet he started.

Whatever else he said that night, he said it badly.

He said it wrong.

Turns out, it was my mum doing the howling.

Turns out, my dad had woken in the middle of the night with a pain in his arm or in his heart.

Something like that.

He didnt want to bother anyone.

Mum was worried, so she called our neighbour, Mr Mullens, who drove him to hospital.

Dad died on the way.

He was fifty-two.

Earlier that night on TV: Prisoner Episode #1.81

After Roz collapses, Kath puts her to bed but cant wake her next morning. Vera suspects shes been drugged; Greg takes blood samples and keeps her until they find out what the cause was. Kath has tossed the pen, and no one finds it; she pleads ignorance to Mrs Davidson. Bea tries to pump Kath for info, even trying to get Lizzie into the room with Kath and Roz While Leila fixes dinner, Geoff and Fletcher go to the pub

Birth marks

I was at an acupuncturist recently, getting treatment for the insomnia that had plagued me for months. Margaret, the acupuncturist, was a little bird of a woman, with long, grey hair that seemed to spring wild from her scalp. She was tiny and wise. She spoke slowly and softly. I lay on her treatment bed and she spent a long time feeling the pulse in one wrist and then the other.

Your poor heart, she said after a while, its trying so hard, but its not being supported.

She started the treatment. Before inserting a needle, shed lean towards the point of insertion and whisper, Breathe in. Id breathe in and shed insert her needle, leave a moment for exhalation, then, Breathe in. Another one. Breathe in. Another. By the time she got down to my feet, I could hardly hear her.

She got to my left leg. Id mentioned, when I arrived, that blood had started pooling in my feet and Id been feeling a kind of woodiness starting at my ankles and moving upwards. It felt like my legs were trying to become tree trunks. She stopped and looked closely at my birthmarks.

They must have had a hard time getting you out.

You mean they could have happened when I was born? She nodded. You can hardly see them now, but when I was young my birthmarks were the colour of dark red wine, spilt claret. They ran from my knee to my ankle. I was always thinking about ways I could hide them. I wore long socks with tight elastic at the top. I avoided the pool. I dreaded summer and sandals. When people would say What happened to your leg? or Youve got something on your leg, Id say Oh them? Theyre just birthmarks.

I guess I could have made up a more exotic backstory, but I just didnt want them to be a topic of conversation.

As I grew up, my legs grew too, of course, and the birthmarks faded. They came to look more like bruises than anything else like temporary scuffs arisen from the rough and tumble of life. Id always thought my birthmarks had been the result of a miscommunication of my DNA; that somehow, when it was time to make my legs, my genetic material got the colours wrong and put blush where there should have been beige.

On the drive home from seeing Margaret I realised there are actually five marks. One near my knee, in the middle of my shin and another four running in a diagonal line up from my ankle. Five fingerprints? My left leg is crooked too. Twisted outwards. What went on in that birthing room? Maybe I was dragged into the world, left leg first, kicking and crying. It wouldnt surprise me. Mum was forty when she had me ancient in those days to be having a baby. She told me once, drunkenly, at a dinner for her birthday, that she didnt talk to Dad for two weeks after she found out she was pregnant with me. One of my aunties had told her to get rid of it by drinking half a bottle of castor oil. Mum said she went home and had two tablespoons full and got the runs.