With Kisses on Both Cheeks

By Elizabeth Kata

The 1960s were a time of contrasts; of a younger generation resisting the constrictive attitudes of their parents, and parents looking on with incredulity at their children's liberal ideals and alien lifestyles. In title novella 'With Kisses on Both Cheeks' Kata encapsulates this time of flux within the Kay household. Julie Kay, the only child of conservative suburban parents, looks with longing at the free loving atmosphere of the migrant family next door. Desperate for friendship, she sneaks into this forbidden world and begins a double life, that of light and warmth with the Bitinas, and that of smothering control at home. When Julie finally moves out, her rebellion leads her to a way of life so far from her upbringing that it may be too progressive even for her.

The short stories that make up the rest of the collection are an eclectic mix of themes, from the moving 'Friendship', where two families, one Jewish and one German, have their bond tested by the Second World War, to the bizarre and humorous 'The Gazing Ball' in which we see a lonely New York store assistant's obsession with a crystal ball.

With Kisses on Both Cheeks, first published in 1981, demonstrates Kata's remarkable ability to entertain with thoughtful and current themes, no matter what the subject matter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Oct 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781448215560

Elizabeth Kata

Elizabeth Kata (1912–1998) was born in Australia and lived for many years in Japan. Married in Tokyo in 1937, she spent the last two years of the Second World War in internment. Her son was born just three weeks before the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. On being released she returned to Australia in 1947 with her infant son, where she embarked on a long and illustrious writing career. Her first novel, A Patch of Blue (originally published as Be Ready with Bells and Drums), was translated into eight different languages and made into an award-winning film. She wrote screenplays for both film and television, which were produced in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Book preview

With Kisses on Both Cheeks

Sometimes I was sure my parents hated one another. As an only, lonely child I would be perplexed and frightened listening to their noisy, wordy battles; many were to do with a certain Robert Menzies, and it came as a relief to me when I realized that he would never come bounding into my home, kill Father, kiss, cuddle Mother and run away with her, thereby leaving me to my fate in the modest house I’d been born in, in Manly, a suburb on the north side of the bridge which spans Sydney Harbour. I was amazed to find that my parents had never even met the man Menzies, that he was the Prime Minister, leader of the Liberals, greatly admired and idolized by Mother; violently loathed and opposed by Father, a true-blue supporter of Labor.

I was scared, deeply concerned for Father’s safety when he grumbled about ‘those cursed poking-machines’ he had to deal with at his Club, until I discovered what poker machines really were; but most of all I became confused and upset by quarrels which centred around Mother’s refusal to let me play with children in our street.

‘The kid’s lonely. Julie needs playmates,’ Father would state, only to have Mother shrill back that just because he was a no-hoper, she was not having her child mixing with ‘peasants like those Poisons! With those Irish, Mick on the make, Maguires, or, most especially, with that migrant rabble, those Bitinas wogs, next door!’

Father would yell that Mother, amongst other things, was just a ridiculous snob and, as they argued on, they would forget about me and my loneliness. I felt I was their burden, not because they didn’t love me but because they wanted me—so they said—to have the best of everything. I was guilt-ridden knowing they had to ‘go without so much’ because of my up-keep.

When Ronald Poison told me that he and the other children attended non-pay schools, I could not understand why Mother made Father spend hard-earned money to keep me at such an expensive school. I hated the way Father scowled, at me, when he wrote cheques for my tuition. I knew, from experience, that it was useless to tell my parents how I felt. They would just have frowned, saying, ‘Now—don’t be cheeky, Julie!’

I would become extraordinarily happy when Mother ‘splurged’, buying herself an expensive hat, or when Father ‘splurged’ buying a £3 ticket in the Opera House Lottery; then I would become desperately unhappy when no prize—not even a small one—resulted from his investment. ‘Just a bloody waste of money,’ he would groan, despondently, adding that he, for one, would never darken the doors of the building, when—or if—it were ever completed. His scathing comments would send Mother into a frenzied state. She adored, and was enthusiastic about, the Opera House, telling me that it would be extraordinarily beautiful and exciting when completed. I believed Mother. I wanted to be beautiful and interesting too but felt I had little chance.

Mother was very pretty, gregarious too. She alluded to her women friends as ‘the girls’! Father, also gregarious and nice looking, had ‘business acquaintances’, ‘personal friends’, and, above all, ‘my mates’. He and his mates were members of that holy of holies, the Returned Servicemen’s Leagues Club, the RSL.

I was forever longing to be allowed to visit the Bitinas’ home, next door, which, I felt sure, was a special kind of club. They had a never ending stream of callers. Not just invited guests but people who arrived at any old time and it was lovely to see the way they embraced, kissing one another on both cheeks.

Ronald Poison, who was often in the Bitinas’ home, told me they drank wine and even let children have a sip or two. My parents and their friends usually drank beer. There was no way they would allow me a sip. I didn’t mind, I disliked the smell of beer. I decided I would drink wine when I grew up, also I would marry a man who wanted at least three children, instead of just one, and love them in every way.

I knew Father loved me but not the easy-going way Mr Poison, the tram conductor, loved his children, or the playful, laughing way Mr Bitinas loved his son and daughters. I never envied the Maguire children, for unfortunately Mr Maguire drank vast quantities of beer and was known to be cruel to his family.

Very early on in life I developed a passion for books, preferring reading to watching television, with just one exception, Father Knows Best, a series about an American family—three children—with parents so divinely just, so divinely kind and understanding that I almost wept at certain times, like watching Robert Young, as father, reading bedtime stories to his small ‘television daughter’, Cathy. That never happened to me. Immediately that programme was over I would be told, ‘That’s it! Now—hop into bed, Julie!’

There were evenings when I begged to stay up, because I wanted to be with someone, but my pleadings usually ended with tears. However, when in 1958 I achieved the magical age of ten, two numerals, I was allowed to stay up later, to chat with Mother whilst Father sat, often with closed eyes, before the switched-on television set, and when the inevitable order to go to bed finally came, I was more than happy to escape to my bedroom, where I had developed a world of my own.

Apart from reading, my favourite occupation was to turn my light off and stand by the window looking into the windows of the Bitinas’ house. At first I had felt guilty about spying on the migrant family. I knew it was not only unfair to them but also sneaky of me but I found them more entrancing, much more so, than the ‘telly family’ so I put all uneasy feelings away.

It was easy to see the Bitinas had no need for a television set. They were obviously happy and entertained just in being together. They had a wind-up gramophone and played records of piano and violin music and they sometimes sang bright, stirring songs and occasionally songs that made me feel sad.

I was wildly curious when they spoke, in words I could not understand. When they used English I realized that Mr and Mrs Bitinas spoke it brokenly but their big son, Mikas, and his three sisters, Aldona, Ruta and little Birute, had no such problems. The entire family were very nice looking and all of them had gleaming, exceptionally white teeth.

It seemed to me that the Bitinas children were in no way burdens to their parents. I couldn’t get over the bonhomie, the sociality I was witness to.

Just before I turned eleven, my mother took a job in an office. She was working, she told her friend, Doris Skinner, because my father kept complaining about paying my school fees and she was determined to keep me at the prestigious school. She also said she felt I was old enough and trustworthy enough to come home from school and into an empty house. But I was not as trustworthy as Mother believed. After arriving home, I would change out of my uniform, set the table in readiness for dinner, peel the potatoes, then rush into the house next door where Mrs Bitinas gave me scrumptious things to eat and kissed me on both cheeks and I would play about, feeling as free and easy as though I were a member of the family. I was never so happy. I found that the migrants were lovely people, even more lovely than I had thought. I also began to learn many things from, and about, them.

They were Lithuanians. Lithuanian cooking was delicious. I could never get enough of it. Not that I despised my mother’s cooking. She was famous for cakes which she decorated with complicated icings, and of which I could also never get enough.

I also learnt—to my shock—that my neighbours had been in the thick of terrible things which had happened in Europe during the war. My father and his mates at the RSL Club had fought in that war. When the cruel war was over, they, the Bitinas family, had lived a hard life in a Camp for Displaced Persons in Germany, in a place called Freiburg. I had seen a documentary about such a place on television and could not really believe I was actually friends with people who had suffered so much.

When I asked Mrs Bitinas about their lives during the war and in the Camps, she said it was better not to dwell on certain things. ‘Better for boys and girls to play, enjoy themselves, to be kind, to be friendly. Above all, Shulee,’ she had smiled, ‘friendly.’

I told her I would do as she advised but that I could not help feeling sad because she and Mr Bitinas had left their homeland and lost so many relatives and friends. Suddenly, she had begun to weep, and putting my arms about her I also began to cry. We really loved each other. Then Mrs Bitinas began to sniff and laugh. She made coffee and we drank it, together, just as if I were her grown-up friend and I felt a new kind of happiness, one that I had never before experienced.

Mother resented having the Bitinas family as neighbours. To the best of her ability—which was great to say the least—she ignored their very existence. She could not endure the way they called out to one another in a language which she could not understand. Apart from speaking their own language and English, Mr and Mrs Bitinas spoke Russian, German and French. So did Aldona and Mikas. I longed to inform Mother of their skills for she had a great admiration for highly educated people, but I had to keep my knowledge a secret. Time and time again, she declared that all migrant people, no matter from where they came, no matter what religion, or colour they were—never and in no way would they ‘enhance our wonderful Australian way of life’.

The most precious Bitinas treasure was an album which held photographs of the fine house they had lived in, in a city called Kaunas. Also many faded snapshots of family picnics taken, before the war, on the banks of the lovely river Niemen which flowed through Kaunas on its way to the Baltic sea. One afternoon, Mrs Bitinas allowed me to look through the album and as I looked she told me how life had been in her younger days and how the war had turned so many lives from happiness to ‘things not so happy, Shulee.’

School holidays became times almost too good to be true. I was so glad to have Mother, as well as Father, away all day, at their jobs. I would rush like mad through the chores expected of me, then rush like mad into the Bitinas home which was like a joyous club for all the children in the street. I would throw away the food Mother had fondly, carefully prepared for me, then stuff myself with Lithuanian delicacies, such as kopustainiai, astounded on finding out that cabbage could taste so wonderful, and with silkes su svogunais, tasty, sharp, which was herring-fish and onions.

I found out that it was easy to pronounce ‘I Sveikata!’ and more interesting to me than merely saying ‘Good health!’ before tossing down a glass of milk. Instead of saying, ‘Hello, Mikas!’ ‘Hello, Mrs Bitinas!’ I would call, ‘Labas! Labas!’

To my mind, Mikas Bitinas stood out amongst other boys in the street—or boys anywhere—like a film star, compared to mere extras in a film. He was the pride and joy of his family. Even his sisters loved him quite madly and so did I. He and Mrs Bitinas were like brother and sister rather than son and mother and he was always ready to help with the work or to play with us younger children even though he was so much older. He had a part-time job and every payday he brought his mother a bunch of flowers and she fixed them in a vase, smiling, as though the flowers were made of gold.

Mikas was called Mike by his Australian mates. He had many friends, both boys and girls and his parents welcomed them all into the home. When Mikas turned seventeen, the family had a special party to celebrate, not only his birthday, but because he had passed his School Leaving Certificate with very high honours.

Naturally, because of my parents, I couldn’t go to the party, but I stayed up, very late, looking out from my dark room at the gay, dancingly, laughingly good time going on. The following day, the eldest Bitinas girl, Aldona, took a picture of me standing with Mike’s arm on my shoulder. I looked so nice in the snap shot that I longed to show it to Mother, but with feelings of guilt, I hid it away in one of my drawers.

Mother, apart from being angry, would have been hurt and saddened at my sly ways. I hated making her angry and sad but I felt that if I were not sly I wouldn’t have any decent life at all.

I was terrified in case Mrs Bitinas should have another baby, because she said that if the family grew any larger, they would have to find a larger house to live in. This left me with a sinking feeling in my stomach. I was sure that if they moved away I would die of loneliness. I knew it was wicked to be wishing the way I was, because Mrs Bitinas adored children, but I kept on praying that she wouldn’t have any more.

I was so busy, so happy, that Mother started chiding me because my bedroom was becoming a bit of a shambles. Mother was so neat that if just one magazine was slightly sticking out of a pile of magazines she got nervous until it was put straight. Everything in our house just had to be in perfect rows and tidy piles. Her neatness made Father nervous. When he got nervy he was apt to shout. His shouting caused Mother to become nervous and shrill. I believed they were not suited to each other at all, even though they seemed to think they were an ideal married couple.

Above all, I loathed the way they discussed me as though I were not in the room with them. They were always doing it and when I hated things I became unhappy, filling my cheeks with air, and when I did that I looked rather sulky. ‘Just look at that sulky face!’ they would exclaim, when in fact, I was unhappy.

I made up my mind that I wanted to be a different kind of grown-up person from my parents, even though I would always love them.

I made no friends at school. Even had I lived close to that school, I doubt if I would have made many friends. Many of the girls were nice, but most of them had wealthy fathers which I felt set us apart. When Mother gave a birthday party for me and invited ten classmates over, they all went home very early, which upset Mother. Although four of the girls politely invited me back to their parties, I didn’t enjoy myself and I also left early, which upset Mother again.

In spite of her snobbery, Mother did have many fine ideas and ideals. There was one special act of kindness she carried out and it lead to one of the most important events of my childhood. Every ten days or so three old ladies came to our house from a nearby Old Persons Home.

Mother would trim their hair, do little bits of sewing for them and give them tea and cakes.

Miss Tremayne, youngest of the ladies, was eighty-one. She told me—in confidence—she was in contact with Beings from Outer Space. Told me—also in confidence—she was partly of Indian (Hindu) descent and had once lived in Bombay, where she had learnt, from an Indian relative, to breathe correctly and to stand on her head, which, to my astonishment, she did, right in the centre of my bedroom.

I had many chats with Miss Tremayne about Unidentified Flying Objects