The Magical Appearance of Earthworms

By N. A. Moncrief

Mickey, the narrator of this book, looks back at his life growing up in Tilburn, thirty miles out of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

In reflecting on his life, Mickey explores how children let the world in rather than judging it at a safe distance. We inevitably get hurt in the process, and we carry wounds – until we have the courage to revisit them.

A theme of the book is that if we revisit our stories with fierce compassion, they can work to free us rather than enslave us. They can become our most trusted companions as we realise we have all we need.

In sharing stories from his life from a very early age, Mickey explores wonders and horrors, inviting the mysterious alchemy of wounds becoming gifts.

Join Mickey on a journey that seeks to get everyone to a place where they lay down their masks, shed their armor, and put down their swords to let the distant voice of truth speak as they find their true selves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jan 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728397146

N. A. Moncrief

N. A. Moncrief began writing this book intending to highlight the fascinating work he’s done to help companies and conservationists protect forests and safeguard people’s livelihoods and cultures. That led him to look back on his earliest memories to find a deeper connection with himself and those around him.

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© 2020 N. A. Moncrief. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/08/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-9715-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-9716-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-9714-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019920833

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Cover design by Manon Wright

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

That Tree We Planted

Beloved Master

That tree we planted near the spot

That became your

Tomb

Has grown so well

That it is now several times

My height.

When

The season comes

That makes its leaves bow

And whirl,

Hafiz

Will then sleep upon the ground

Hoping in at least

A dream

You

Will kiss my cheek

Again!

From The Gift: Poems by Hafiz, the Great Sufi Master

Translations by Daniel Ladinsky (p. 174)

As though childhood had no role to play in the grace of taking flight. As though butterflies did not come from caterpillars.

From The Very Lowly, by Christian Bobin

image%20viii.jpg

Driving his trusty Curlymobile and accompanied by his direction-finding duck, Mr Curly takes the dangerous, winding road back to his childhood on an important mission. In the darkness he negotiates the flimsy bridge over the Great Gap. In front of him, in the glow of the headlights, Mr Curly sees wondrous shapes emerging from the gloom. Somewhere in the blackness a bell tolls. He has arrived!

(By Michael Leunig, From: The Travelling Leunig, Penguin Books Australia)

To Marengle

Did you see in the morning light

I really talked, yes I did, to God’s early dawning light

And I was privileged to be as I am to this day

To be with you, to be with you, to be with you.

Song from The Friends of Mr Cairo. Lyrics by Jon Anderson

To Sir Werner Bruce

Always with me

Contents

Chapter 1 Love on the Tilburn–Stone Bay Road

Chapter 2 Horse Mornings

Chapter 3 Mum

Chapter 4 Darren

Chapter 5 Beautiful Pregnant Women

Chapter 6 Samson II

Chapter 7 My Pet Lizard

Chapter 8 Spinning, Laughing, Glee

Chapter 9 Virgil the Mongrel Drake

Chapter 10 The Pond

Chapter 11 Sydney

Chapter 12 The Infamous Pet Shop Robbery

Chapter 13 Mum’s Yellow Hydrangeas

Chapter 14 The Parting

Chapter 15 Long Days and Wicked Farewells

Chapter 16 Blood

Chapter 17 The Kiss

Chapter 18 Crying

Chapter 19 The Door

Chapter 20 The Bike

Chapter 21 The Kick

Chapter 22 The Long Descent

Chapter 23 Ross

Chapter 24 The Magical Appearance of Earthworms

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Chapter 1

Love on the Tilburn–Stone Bay Road

It was not a long drive from Tilburn, where I lived, to Stone Bay, maybe twenty minutes. It seemed longer because I so seldom went anywhere beyond Tilburn’s narrow confines. I was just a kid, and my parents let me run feral with my dogs. I could pretty much do whatever I wanted and mostly did. Sitting still in a car for twenty minutes was an eternity, an imposition on my otherwise much-treasured freedom. It didn’t help that Dad smoked like a chimney, one moment a cigarette and the next his pipe. My young lungs preferred the fresh country air, but that bloke just couldn’t get enough tobacco into himself, and the windows were always wound up tight. It was a pain, but I still loved going because it was almost always just Dad and me. Dad and Mum rarely went anywhere together.

It was even more rare for my brother, Darren, and me to be in the same place at the same time. We just weren’t mates. I couldn’t stand the bastard and did whatever I could to avoid him. Whenever Dad yelled, Come for a drive? I’d quickly drop whatever I was doing and bolt to the car, to get there first. Not that Darren was ever keen on going anyhow; he was too busy with his chooks and pigeons. I’d always be anxious until Dad jumped in, started her up, and we’d backed out the drive. Phew! I’d think as Dad turned the car into the street. Just the two of us. That short-long drive was my time, and even the smoke couldn’t bugger it.

Tilburn was just thirty miles out of Melbourne, but it was already in the country. The Tarra Valley Highway, running right through the middle of town, carried travellers out into the heart of rural south-eastern Victoria, into the market-garden, sheep, beef-, and dairy-cattle country beyond. Tilburn was the first town with any notable shops and services once folk left the outskirts of Melbourne. People mostly passed through going elsewhere. More often than not, the few who did come stopped to visit the horse-racing track. The races that took place from time to time were our only claim to fame. Tilburn had become one of the major regional Victorian race-horse training centres outside of Melbourne. Mugs from all around brought their horses there each morning to run about and fuel dreams of one day striking it rich by winning the Melbourne Cup.

The street where we lived, Davey Street, ran off the highway and headed out towards my school, Tilburn North Primary, and the vast paddocks of old Mrs Walters’s farm. There weren’t many houses on our street nor on the adjacent streets. Tilburn was no metropolis; it seemed to me that few people lived there. Our bit of town, Tilburn North, was even emptier than the main bit, where I didn’t go too much anyhow. We were out of the flow, a sideways glance from a car window as folks went about their business. There were no traffic lights, and most of the streets off the highway were dirt roads with open drains to take the rainwater away. There was no phone service and no sewerage system. We all had outdoor dunnies and had to suffer the indignity of having the night watchman visit from time to time to replace our full poo cans.

Up in town, we had Mrs Richard’s supermarket for our groceries, and if we ran short, Mrs Coleman had her milk bar at the end of our street, really handy. Our house was almost on the corner with Poppington Street, so I was literally one hundred metres diagonally across a paddock from school. The Tilburn footy club was a bike ride away, in the middle of the racetrack. There were a few churches and a community hall as well as the main council building. There was Mansfield’s Vet clinic—my dad knew the vet, Dr John Mansfield, really well—and the police station that all the kids lived in fear of. There was a fish-and-chip shop, run by the Greeks, and the barber’s for a haircut every other year. We also had a chemist for any medicine we might want, not that we ever wanted much. Mum and Dad weren’t big on taking us to the docs. There was the servo for petrol and, of course, The Royal pub that sat imposingly on a corner bang in the middle of town. A pet shop, a branch of the National Australia Bank, and the post office completed the place.

Tilburn had a train station, but no trains had gone through for a long time. The station was from a forgotten time when farm produce and mining stuff had been hauled up in huge, long goods trains from down the coast, from Tarra Valley, and from down along Jillingsport Bay way. These had come through on to the Port of Melbourne. At some point they’d restarted the passenger service to Melbourne, but there wasn’t much traffic.

Tilburn wasn’t a beautiful spot, but it was functional enough, and it was our home. We were from there and that was OK for us. Still, it never felt like there was any community—everyone minded their own business and kept mostly to themselves. Tilburn was quiet, and apart from the horses, not much happened there.

Dad travelled a lot with work, and when he was home, there was every chance I wasn’t; more than likely I was off somewhere with my dogs. Dad spent a fair amount of time in The Royal and at the horse track. Dad loved horses, and it seemed to me that he devoted every waking non-working hour to being with them and all the horsey people who congregated at The Royal. It seemed the same to Mum. She didn’t like it much, but that didn’t change him. Between his work, the horses, and The Royal, we didn’t see much of Dad.

From time to time he’d have to go to Stone Bay to buy something or, more often, to Tilburn South, Vicksfield, or Montsville to see horse people. Those towns were out towards Stone Bay, so we’d take the Tilburn–Stone Bay road. I enjoyed the novelty of being on the smooth, bitumen surface—no potholes, not like Davey Street. Our little street was pothole city, some of them so big you could almost crawl into them and pretend no one could see you. Along with the rainwater ditches, the potholes were bomb craters for our war games or for when we played cowboys and itchy-bums. Every now and then the council would run a grader over her and we’d have a flat surface to muck around on for a spell, but only until the next rain, when the potholes would return. Getting to and from our place to the highway made for a slow, shaking-up experience.

Out on the road, there wasn’t much to see, just paddocks and the trees that lined the way. I’d watch the road mostly, admiring how Dad kept the car between the white lines. I’d sit there and marvel at his hands, at his concentration, and the way the slightest movement left or right would see us swerving around corners or passing slower vehicles. It was a mystery to me. Just out of Tilburn there was the Holburn Golf Club, and I’d wait in anticipation for us to round the long bend that took us towards Stone Bay. Every time we’d round that bend—every time—Dad would start talking. Hands gripping the wheel, pipe or ciggy hanging out his mouth, the radio playing the footy or the cricket, he’d start to tell me the story. This road here, son, he’d start, late the night you were born, I sped along here with your mother sitting right there in the passenger seat, busy getting ready to have you. Each and every time he’d tell me, but I didn’t mind. I loved it; I loved the idea of him rushing off to the hospital with Mum. The idea of them being together made me feel good, even better that it was for the auspicious occasion of my impending arrival. It made me feel I’d been wanted, that I hadn’t been a mistake. The older kids at school used to have a go at us youngsters, saying, You were adopted or You were a mistake; your parents didn’t want you. It was how they hurt you. Each time Dad told me his story, it gave me a shield; it gave me power.

Dad would come over all misty and reflective. He would be watching the road, but I could see in his face that he was remembering. I could smell the rubber burning. I was a kid, so I knew nothing about childbirth, but I’d learned enough to know it was no walk in the park. It was a time when mums needed dads to be around. It was a time for cigars, for feelings of love. Dad always said it had been bloody late and dark and crappy weather. I always imagined a raging storm. He told me he’d had to watch out for branches on the road. Those bloody trees! That wouldn’t have been any good, son, he’d say.

Bloody right! I’d always think, proudly echoing his lingo as I imagined massive trunks falling in front of him and Dad swerving to miss them. The smoke from Dad’s pipe would always quell a bit when he told the story. It was as if he couldn’t drive, remember, and suck all at once. My lungs sighed with the break from it.

Almost didn’t bloody make it! he’d say with a serious tone and a grim-faced shake of his head. I’d worry what not making it would have meant and get a mental picture of Mum there in the passenger seat with me splattered on the floor. It didn’t seem good. I’d imagine Dad driving like a mad bastard, Juan Fangio, to get us to the hospital before—well, before I didn’t know what, but the fact that I was there and Mum was fit and healthy at home told me he’d made it. He was a hero. I’d had a special arrival into the world. I had a story!

I’d never seen anything to suggest that they really did love each other. There were strong words, bad arguments, and long silences at home that lasted for weeks, what with Dad’s travel. It was our normal. My earliest memory—I’d have been lucky to be four, I reckon—was of Dad throwing his dinner across the table at Mum one night, having come home from The Royal with too many beers under his belt. Then he promptly headed back there. He achieved the feat without a single scrap of food flying off the plate. I remember thinking, Bet he couldn’t do that again if he tried! But then I saw the shame on Mum’s face.

I never saw them kiss or hug, but Dad used to call Mum Rose, which struck me as odd, considering her name was Patricia. It was a pet name that suggested at least some affection. I figured, without understanding, that making babies meant making love, at least that’s what the older kids at school said. Thus the fact that they’d had me whispered of something in the love department. His mad rush to get us to the hospital and his pride in telling me every time we were on the road suggested love too. It seemed he didn’t want to let it go; it was still there.

I’d sit there in the car, choking quietly on Dad’s smoke, looking out the wound-up window, and listening to the radio, all the time thinking about Mum and Dad, about a time when they might have been in love. In a rare moment when we were at home together, and an even rarer one when they weren’t at each other, I’d plucked up the courage to ask them how they’d met. They never said much about it. Dad had had another girlfriend, apparently, but he’d met Mum and two seconds later they’d been married. That had been in Melbourne, where they’d both been working. I always wondered why they’d moved to Tilburn. Had it been to escape? It seemed as though they were hiding. The kids at school spoke about shotgun weddings, but I’d done the maths, and it wasn’t that. After a few mumbled words, dishes would get collected, or Dad would get up and go and watch the telly in the lounge room, and it would remain a mystery.

Dad had an old photo album that I’d sneak out when no one was looking. It was a grey old thing, leather bound, that looked to be about 100 years old. Inside there were pictures of Dad’s old dog, Samson, marked by Dad’s beautiful calligraphy; he had lovely writing. Dad always spoke reverently about Samson, about how he’d been such a terrific hunting dog, loyal, how he’d loved him so much, and how sad he’d been when he’d died.

The photos of Dad’s trips to Brown’s Island and the mountains in 1955 really got me. Getting a glimpse into Dad’s past was a thrill. After Samson, there were photos of Betty and people called Bob and Val. Dad had taken them with his box Brownie. The two that always caught my attention were labelled Bob & Peter and Betty & Yours Truly. In the photos Dad was smiling and happy. I never saw him like that. Why doesn’t he take photos now? I wondered. Why don’t we ever go on trips? and What happened to that young man in the photo? Most of all I’d scratch my head and wonder, Who is Betty? Dad had his arm around her, and they were really close, their bodies touching, neither of them looking unhappy. They were closer to each other than I’d ever seen him get to Mum. It deeply confused me, but I dared not ask him. The album was kept hidden away in his cupboard, packed up tight, so I figured it wasn’t for discussion.

We’d soon get to wherever we had to go, and Dad would do his thing, drench or inject a horse with something, chat a while to the owner or the farmer, and then we’d jump back in the car and drive home. Halfway back I’d manage to spirit the window open a crack, and breathing in some much-needed oxygen, I’d admire the trees along the way. I’d drift off imagining Mum and Dad being happy together, just like him and Betty, laughing, holding hands, and being in love.

My dogs were always waiting for me when we arrived home. Where’ve you been, you bugger? they’d bark, bounding around me, cross that I’d left them alone. They’d jump up and lick my face, and we’d wrestle and roll around while their madly wagging tails whipped my legs and each other. I’ve been on the Tilburn–Stone Bay road, I’d whisper to them. I didn’t want my brother to hear; he’d only mock me and call me a dickhead. But for that brief while, if only for a moment while Dad shared his story during the mostly silent drive, I’d been embraced by the thought of love. I gripped hold of it, refusing to let it go. There on that road, going from nowhere special to nowhere special, I’d snatched a breath of it.

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Chapter 2

Horse Mornings

Time to get up, mate, Dad whispered, his hand gently nudging my shoulder. It would be somewhere between 5.00 and 5.30 a.m., way before I needed to be up to get to school. But Dad rose early and liked my company, so I never complained. We had to go and do the horses.

As I pulled on my strides, shirt, and jumper, I’d hear him in the kitchen traumatising his tea. Dad never actually stirred his tea; he gave it a damned good beating. He had this way of whipping the spoon back and forth, his own special technique, and each time it struck the cup wall it would ring through the house like a bell: Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!—Wake up, you bastards!—with Dad oblivious to the upset. It made me laugh because he was so careful to keep quiet the rest of the time, but he took no prisoners on his mission to get the sugar bloody well mixed into that tea.

Winter, spring, summer, or autumn, the horses needed our early morning attention. I’d have a bowl of Weetabix, and off we’d go. It was a short drive to the stables, not even ten minutes; Tilburn wasn’t a big place. My job was to muck out the stalls. I’d get in there with Nellie and give her a morning rub. She was a lovely girl, tiny and super affectionate, and we’d have a good old chat about everything. I’d move her to another stall and then scoop up all her poo and chuck it in the wheelbarrow. Then I’d toss all the straw around the sides of the stall. Whenever I found a wet patch where she’d peed in the night, I’d chuck that in the wheelbarrow too. There was a real technique to it, keeping the fresher straw separate from the wet stuff that needed chucking and piling it around the walls so it could air during the day. I was chuffed that Dad trusted me with the pitchfork. Once the floor was clear, I’d get some lime and scatter it on the wet patches, sweeping it all off to a pristine sheen. Then I’d move to Rickey’s stall. Rickey wasn’t our horse, but Dad always helped old Mr Batman. He owned the stables and let us keep Nellie there in return for Dad training Rickey. He’d been something of a prospect when he was younger, and Dad hoped that he could nurse him back to winning ways.

We went to the track two or three times a week. It was a real community. Loads of folk brought their horses for morning exercise. I can’t say the track was exciting, especially when we took Nellie. We’d put her in a stall and wait for one of the jockeys to come and ride her. Nellie wasn’t much of a racehorse, so no one was in a desperate hurry, poor thing. It meant we waited for ages. Rickey still had legs, so the jockeys were more interested in him. Sometimes we’d take them both, always with a groan from me, because I didn’t think we’d ever get home.

It cost Dad a lot of money to train the horses, but we weren’t there to make our riches. Dad just loved the people and he loved the animals. Sure, he hoped that one day he’d train a winner, but that wasn’t why he did it. He loved the spirit of the whole thing, and he loved having me there to share it with him. It was our bond.

After Dad legged the jockey up and told him what he wanted, we’d go and sit in the stand. On race days the stand was packed with people, but first thing midweek mornings there was only ever us diehards, stopwatches in hand, watching our charges doing laps. Some mornings the horses only did light work, which meant we sat there for four bloody lifetimes watching them trot slowly around the track, always twice, as if to really screw the blade. Death. It was so excruciating that I’d sometimes fall asleep on Dad’s shoulder. The only thing that kept me awake was Mum’s admonishing to never sit on concrete. You’ll get haemorrhoids! she’d say, and though I had no idea what that meant, she’d told me about blood vessels hanging out your bum and serious pain doing poo. It didn’t sound like fun. Dad sat on the concrete, and there was nowhere else to sit, so while I was tired and deathly bored, anxiety about blood vessels kept me awake.

Once the laps had been mercifully completed, we’d go back to the stall. Dad would wash the horse down, and we’d load it back on the float and head back to the stables. I’d get to lead both horses to their outdoor yards—big decision as to whether to take their rugs off or not—give them their tucker, and we’d head home.

By the time I finally got to school, I’d been up around three hours!

Fortunately the weekends were different. We seldom went to the track on Saturday and never on Sunday, so Dad would let me sleep. Nonetheless, the habit of rising early meant that first job most Saturday mornings I’d wake up at sparrows and head out into the breaking dawn to jump on the back of the milkman’s draught-horse drawn trailer as he passed by home, clop, clop, clop. We’d travel slowly about all the streets and I’d help him deliver bottles of milk to people’s front porches. It was the late 1960s, but we were still living in what was effectively 1950s rural Australia.

If Rickey or Nellie were racing, it would be on a Saturday, and there was no question as to whether I would go or not. We’d head out before dawn, as usual, get everything ready, and go for a long drive to wherever the races were. In Nellie’s case it was usually