My father, Shane O'Hara, was a brute of a man, if you were not family. I once saw him pound a man into the pavement; I felt sorry for that man even though he had hit me, how was he to know my father booked no one touching one of his own. Okay maybe I should not call the weasel a man he had after all struck a girl and I was a girl all of ten years old; in his defence, I had run into him causing him to spill his precious Brown Ale, his lament that it was imported all the way from Newcastle Upon Tyne; to all places Newcastle on the Hunter of very little importance to my father. His sledgehammer blows laid the ale drinker low. As is the way in 'our' town, no one saw a single thing, you simply do not take your anger out on a child.
If there was one thing in addition to his family, father had a passion about, it was his absolute hatred of gays. His rants would lift the roof off our house. I am positive the first words to ever register in my head were one of his rants. Naturally it shaped my life. Never and I mean never bring up the topic, we would never even hint at it. Mum thought our new sixty inch tele was going to wind up at the tip, when one of the league players came out. Hell, you would have thought it was the end of the world. All we could be thankful about was it was not one of his team's players. The other good thing was whenever his team played that brave soul's team, we did not have to put up with meatheads ramming each other into the turf. We, mum and I had the run of the remote and dad would even watch pottery or cooking with us.
Father was the youngest of four boys, 'my happy late gift from God,' my grandmother would crow, heck she was only thirty-nine when father was born. He was almost ten years younger than his siblings; and he was also the shortest at six foot one. My uncles all paid out on him being the short-shit of the family, 'accounts for the temper on him; short man syndrome,' they laugh long and hard at that. While my paternal grandparents were staunch Catholics, father was not and he had never a nice word to say about them. Gran said it was because he was expelled from the catholic school. The facts were very short on that part of his life, other than a thirteen year old beating the bejesus out of a 'brother' would certainly be frowned upon. It was never spoken about in any depth and I heard it told only once in that shorthand version.
Father's family were hard working bunch of people who stuck together and helped each other raise themselves above working class into middle class 'respectability' of running a construction firm, there was some question about respectable and construction in the same sentence. First it was houses then blocks of flats and then medium developments. They stayed at that level of development. Buying the land and then populating it with steel and concrete, a few trees and lawn.
He, Shane O'Hara, my father was most certainly the best father I could or would hope for, one small exception to that statement. As loving and protective man. He always gave the best of hugs and although now I don't get any and none the best of kisses. His freshly shaved face in the morning, on the way out to work, a pleasing scent of West Indian Lime, in the evening it was a scratchy five o'clock shadow and the manly smell of a day's work. Those hugs, by the by were just right, the right pressure and duration, one's that told you, you were loved and cherished. They did become a whisker leaner when my boobs started to bud, only mum gave him the lecture and he returned to normal, almost.
My mother, Gwyneth Kendrick, on the other hand was born into a middle class family of four, her mother and father and a sister who was older than her by a mere three years. While mum was tall at six feet and willow slim, her sister, my 'Aunt Louise' was six inches shorter and curvier. Louise was a stunner in every sense of the word and had learnt very early on that it was more of a hindrance than an asset if you wanted to be acknowledged for your intelligence and ability to do the job with efficiency and improvements, not just sit there looking pretty. Looks had its place in life but it sure came with a cost.
Mother had the unenviable problem, her ability was overlooked as were her looks, where Louise was a ten, she apparently was only a seven, personally I thought mum was a ten and father thought she was a twenty. In mum's life that was all that counted. From what I could see father was never concerned about guys hitting on mum, she was polite but firm in her cutting down any hint of flirting with her. Aunt Louise on the other hand thought it was sport and gave as good as she got, then torched them. I imagine that was part of the cause she was not married until later in life. Too late to have children, her baby she would tell me was her career. Although she did hint, she would have liked a flesh and blood daughter or son. Anyway, the reason I mentioned her was she tended to spoil me and give unsort advice on men and dating them in general. Not that I need it nor wanted it, politeness however excluded me for speaking my mind on this issue. Besides I needed every beard I could find.
School was easy for me, my name just by the by is Alexandra; it was an escape from my between a rock and a hard place. This is that exception I spoke of earlier. From a young age, not exactly certain the age or day around five or six, I suppose, I came to realise I was one of those people my father hated with unreserved passion. While he showered me with love and affection as any good father does his offspring, I instinctively knew never to voice my innermost thoughts of who I was. It was carried into my everyday life, no one at school was to know for maybe it would get back to my father. Limiting my interaction with my peers caused me to sink even more into the world of learning and study. At all costs my Fear was that he never find out and turn on me like a rabid wild dog. Like a lot of people, I desperately wanted the affection, unreserved love and pride in my achievements from my parents more than anything else, well almost, my deepest desire was to be loved for who I was.
Now, as any sane person knows, your sexuality does not define you, it's all those other human traits that do that, coupled with your actions and deeds. I hid in my books and study only for my mother to become concerned at how much time I was indoors; so, I was gently pushed to start taking and interest in outdoor activity of some sort, basically any sort would do, even netball, commonly referred to as bitch-ball and that was without any form of endearment was bottom of the list, as was cricket and the rest of the team sports. It seemed to be a lure for my peers to try included me in all their team activities, in turn it caused me to seek out individual sports like cross-country running, swimming and cycling. Thankfully my parents did not balk at the expense of cycling. I had two moderately expensive bikes, one road and a mountain bike.
While they certainly got me out of the house as they wanted, it caused mum angst every time I rolled out on my road bike. A case of be careful what you wish for! Mountain biking was a rush and she did not like that either, too rough or dangerous, unlike the road it was an instant thrill barrelling down single track, often heart in mouth and brain forcing my hands away from the brake levers. It did not take long to work out the more relaxed I was on the downhill the smoother it went, tense up and oh well thanks for coming.
As I indicated, it only took a few crashes and those were gratefully minor, for me to get into the swing of things. Michael van Rooy had helped me out of the bush I'd gotten up to close and personal when I'd misjudged my speed and hit a tight lefthander, I'd left the track almost horizontally narrowly missed the oak and landed in the Correa, a few scratches, though nothing as bad as landing in a Banksia. Michael gave my bike a once over called it good and lucky for him did not touch me, although he did give me more than a looking over, men hey, horny buggers! No complaints really the number of women I'd mentally undressed, did not give me any mightier than thou rights. He did help improve my MTB skills, only to drift away when I showed no interest in him other than riding; a shame because he had a wicked sense of humour, still it was a year of fun. Dad was protective in a good way and mum gave me the birds and bees volume two talk, yuck! Anyway, what did Michael expect from a fifteen year old. Still I lost a beard and that was scary.
My road bike cycling was a slow burn of enjoyment, it was only after a few kilometres that the thrilling enjoyment would kick in. Unlike the single track rush, the road had its own rushes, like sprinting the yellow, or the down after smashing up a ten percenter, the half road cornering when going flat out left little room for error, especially when there was traffic; and wow some people just did not like sharing the road with two wheels. There was also the unknown on the flash downhill, kangaroos and other wildlife were particularly unpredictable, then there was those little things called potholes or the nightmare of loose stones, it all added to the thrill. The best thing though was for half a day I'd be by myself, the sheer bliss of not having any distractions. Solo cycling was the lifesaver for me and a perfect solution to my raging hormones.
Running was mainly for school; I'll be honest and admit not as enjoyable as the bike. Still, it was nice when training, it was the racing I disliked, the competition of winning almost at all costs and even at that level there was some cheating, the usual cutting corners or whatever. Sour grapes maybe because in all the time I ran for school, only won a handful of internal events and never an interschool meet. The one thing about running was how the courses changed every race, some rocky and others sandy each one a different challenge, and equally as lethal if you showed disrespect, a twisted ankle swift payment of any lapse. It promoted a sense of making sure you were in tune with your surrounds. All my running 'friends' were kept at a distance.
As I grew into my body it became quite clear to me that I'd never be a stunner, tall, lanky and buff, that was me. Someone did not get the memo about dishing out descent size tits, fried eggs sunny side up were bigger than mine, by the time I was sixteen I had stopped crying at the unfairness of it all every time I looked, you know really looked in the mirror. The rest of my body was okay from my perspective, I suppose I could bitch about my thighs from cycling but heck my butt was taut, bounce a coin off them anytime and the thigh gap was not to be ashamed of either. My waist was small and then add the washboard abs into the mix...but very few ever saw those. The baggy clothes I chose to drape over my body made sure of that. No one from school ever saw me in lycra or on my bikes that I knew of anyway. Safe and sound there; my plain light brown hair, kind of matched my hazel eyes, I did have nice cheekbones and my nose was just right so there was that I suppose, my lips were mismatched the bottom nice and full but the top a little on the thin side although there was a hint of a cupids bow. Still, you know how a girl views herself; all gloom, all doom.
Finally, I was completing school, passed the UMAT somehow and then came the pressure to decide on which university do I try get into. My idea was to get as far away from home as possible, somewhere to enable me to be myself and stop having to weigh up every potential friendship and how would my parents see it. Already I had shied away from several I would have loved to have attended and all because they would fail the dad test. At least I think they would have. Perth was out, the West coast would have almost been perfect, no relatives, not even way distant, no friends who had up and moved across the country. Bliss is what that would have been.
