Katarina - Lessons from Childhood

My Sunday afternoons generally are solo affairs with Dougie conked out under his current book. Once I've put on the dinner I'm free to work on Family History, catch up on family emails or - at a pinch - add to this blog. Today is not much different - I've been writing to our mates from the Nursing Class of 1974 about our 30th reunion which is happening next year.

This reunion was an idea that I and Katarina had talked about making happen for years, and it finally got it's blast-off via the Old Friends New Zealand website. There were 17 women ranging in age from 16 to 36 in the Kaitaia Hospital Januaray intake for 1974. Whenever I revisit my albums & diaries of that period they reinforce the bonds forged in me with all those women. We were special. It may be that time & ego have skewed my perspective, but I don't think so. From challenging our tutors, to challenging our seniors on the wards about the way they treated patients - we changed the way things were done in Kaitaia hospital on a whole bunch of things. And in the process we marked and changed each other. But of them all there is only one who has stayed close to me through all the years since, and that is my sister Katarina.

I'm starting my memories of Katarina with how she got her name. When we were growing up she was known as Cathy because Mum had originally intended her to be called Catherine Mary. But we were a Pawarenga Catholic family which meant that Father Zangerl was "The Law." When it came to the moment of baptism he asked Mum for the name, and then completely ignored her answer, imposing instead the Maori transliteration "Katarina Maria," and Mum, in a fit of subservience, registered her as that.

All this came out decades later when Cathy applied for a passport and the Births Deaths & Marriages Registry could not find her birth certificate. It was a real mystery until Mum remembered that, legally, she didn't have a child called Catherine Mary Herbert. It says a lot about the times that not many Maori parents actually gave their kids Maori names in the 1950s. In any event it took another decade or so before Katarina took to actually using her legal name, and there are still scads of people who call her Cathy. But Katarina she is now.

My earliest memory of her was as a small, very blonde and skinny kid. In fact for a little while she was nick-named Blondie. Later she was called "Skitter" because Dad said she was like one of the skinny calves who had the skitters. At another time Mum called her the "I don't care girl" because that was her catch-cry whenever she was being told off or told something she didn't want to hear. And when she really did not want to hear or do something she'd just take off running to get as far away as quickly as she could from whatever or whoever it was. She was fast too. I remember the first time we saw a train. Dad was taking me for my annual checkup with the plastic surgeon who'd repaired my cleft palate and Katarina came with us. We went by bus to the railhead in Okaihau. But when the train came into the station she and I took one look at this puffing monster, screamed, and took off - in different directions. Dad was grateful for a pakeha chap who said, "You grab that one, I'll get the other." Katarina got a lot further than me. She was a real Speedy Gonzales. But I remember one time when she wasn't quite fast enough.

She and Bo had been fighting on and off through the day over something and she'd dealt to him a couple of times. She'd have been about 8 or 9 at the time which would have made him 5 or 6. Anyway by that night we'd all kind of forgotten their earlier battles and had settled into listening to some radio show. Katarina was standing on her head on the sofa with her feet against the wall and her face towards the radio, when Bo came through the door. He looked at her, we looked at him and there weren't nothing we could do to stop him. Katarina tried to get her feet down but it was too late becuase, as the Newcastle Song said, "...don't you ever let a chance go by oh Lord, don't you ever let a chance go by."

Katarina wore a shiner for a day or so and Bo got a hell of hiding from both her and me. But I'm pretty sure he felt it was worth it to have scored a hit on one of his older sisters, because we were always giving him his beans at that time. But he asked for it.

Another time the clash was between her and I. Again I can't remember what triggered it, but I think it was probably over kai because she was holding a boning knife at the time and, at some point in the argument, she threatened to throw it at me. I dared her to do just that and she started making throwing motions with it but not letting it go. It was just one of those brinkmanship things that kids get into, so you could have knocked us both down with a feather when the blade came out of the handle, flew across the room and stuck in my cheek as neat as a dart in a bullseye. Katarina was standing there with the handle still in her hand and her jaw on the ground. Actually it happened so quick and clean that it didn't hurt a bit but, like Bo, I wasn't going to let a chance go by, so I instantly fell flat on my back screaming blue bloody murder. Mum and Dad came rushing in and took one look then went for Katarina, but she was already gone. I can't remember if she got a hiding for that, but I remember feeling smug that for once it wasn't me in trouble.

On the other side of things, as much as we fought as kids, Katarina and I lead our siblings and worked together in all sorts of ways. And Mum and Dad came to rely on that. From a quite young age (about 9 or 10) they trusted us "big ones" (me, Katarina and, to a lesser extent, Patsy) to take the "little ones" (Bo, John and Jenni) swimming or roaming. We three older girls made the lunches and beds - although in truth Katarina was always more consientious and industrious than me in those kinds of tasks because I was basically lazy. I suppose that together we were sometimes unkind to the little ones, but they never liked going roaming without us. In fact even when they got to be old enough to take themselves swimming, they wouldn't go without one of us, which was a pain. But we always gave in - eventually - and ended up having huge fun every time. In everything we were unselfconsciously close to each other. At home, school, church or JMB we'd walk around holding hands, and when we were in new situations we always made sure each other was OK. We even lied and covered for each other - except when we were angry with each other. And, most telling of all, we lived our secret children's lives together. By that I mean the rituals Katarina and I made up that the adults knew nothing of. Like our annual pilgrimage to pay tribute to the fairies that lived in a particular cabbage tree stump (we'd make sure each of the little ones had some gift to leave - a posy of buttercup flowers, a stone, etc). Or the imaginery city we built, defended and clambered through in the huge privet hedge that grew out of a gully below the cow shed. That hedge must have stood 25 feet at its highest and it was on the side of a steep bank that dropped off another 6 feet or so. It completely encircled a stand of Taraire and Karaka trees that had Rata vines hanging out of them. One minute we'd be Kings and Queens in the high castles of the city, the next we were Jane and Tarzan swinging through the jungle. We'd get scratched to hell from the thorns but, as long as we had our gumboots on, we seemed able to hack the pain. We lost a bunch of boots in that hedge though and, in those days of relative poverty, that was a crime punishable with a kick up the backside. I remember a time when one of Katarina's gumboots got stuck. She was trying to release it her when foot suddenly popped free and she somersaulted right out of the hedge onto the ground some 30 feet below. We didn't notice she'd gone till we heard her crying minutes later. She'd been badly winded and it took her that long to get enough air in her lungs to cry out loud. Nothing was brokens because, I suppose, she was so skinny and light. Lucky - because we'd all have got a hiding. Anyway, we made sure to get her boot out of the hedge before we went home.

So, sure we fought, but we were always together.

In the early sixties Mum and Dad fell out with Father Zangerl and he refused to give them Communion. I'm not sure if he refused to let them go to Church as well, but they did stop going. They still sent us and that was an interesting experience. As Catholics there was an expectation that we'd go to the local Convent, but we never did. Mum and Dad never saw the sense in sending us past a school that was right next door to a school 5 miles away. Specially when there was no bus. Rotokakahi is now an accepted part of Pawarenga, but back then it was a very distinct valley community in itself. It wasn't even on the same telephone exchange. All this meant we weren't tight with our Catholic peers at Church who, I guess must have absorbed some adult prejudices, because our Sundays were one long battle both going in and coming out. Katarina and Pat had long hair which was plaited every Sunday while I always had short hair because I was a paru, untidy kid. But I didn't envy my sisters their lovely long plaited tresses which were handles for some serious yanking by the Convent boys we fought with every Sunday. Those same boys were to become our devoted slaves in our teen years. They never stood a chance, except for Hepa who took our side when he was around. We held our own pretty well anyway, with Katarina and I doing the damage, and Bo and Jenni were always usefully aggressive and willing. But Pat was a complete washout and John was sickly and often not with us. Mum and Dad never knew. I don't know why we didn't tell. I do know I loved the singing in Church, I liked it when the Legion of Mary visited to say the Rosary, and I felt protected by our daily family prayers. But the rest of the Catholic experience was just a bun-fight for me.

Anyway, when the Rotokakahi Maori School closed in 1967 we moved to Broadwood District High and a whole new world opened to us. We went from a school of 12 kids aged 5 years to 13 years (5 of us, 5 of our cousins and the schoolteacher's 2) to a school of over 100 aged 5 - 18, most of them a bunch of strangers. At first we carried on much as we had at Rotokakahi - holding hands, talking about "Mummy" and "Daddy" and looking after each other. But we got teased about those things. And then we were put in separate class rooms. Imperceptibly we began to let go some of the things that had bound us together and we inevitably grew apart. Katarina was a sociable pixie and made friends easily. She was popular and I think she got her first boyfriend not long after we started at Broadwood. Three years later, in 1970, I left for Boarding School. When I came back for my last year at school in 1973, Katarina had moved into the role of the oldest at home and the rest of the kids had grown beyond my control.

There is one more thing I need to put down here from our shared childhood. That is the perspective Katarina had of the intermittent warfare between Dad and I. I'm grateful for her honest recounting to me of the trauma of it. I know she has never required anything of me, and I understand that in telling me she gave up an unnecessary burden that she'd been carrying. Nevertheless I say it here as I did to her when she told me - I'm sorry for it.

Our teenage years were quite different to our childhood. I had less status, there were very few clashes, a lot more distance, family prayers petered out and our adventures were not so innocent. Having been in an all-girls school, and not being naturally sociable, I was way behind the dinner compared to Katarina and Pat in the boys department. Later, though I had my moments and I was no angel, I was always crystal clear about my desirability ranking compared to that of my sisters. Most boys lusted after them but respected me. One thing remained unchanged though - we still covered for each other like mad. Poor Mum had the 3 of us triple-teaming her at times. But we never dared try any tricks with Dad. One time I woke up and there was someone shaking my foot and hoarsely whispering "Cathy! Cathy!" All four of us girls slept in the same room in 2 sets of bunks, and our parents' room was just down and across the corridor from us. Both the boy shaking my foot and I got huge shocks to discover each other's identity and he high-tailed it out of there straight away. I could have just gone back to sleep and not said anything, but I knew that Dad had this uncanny way of finding out things. So I woke Katarina up and she agreed that I should go wake and tell him what had happened. Better for him to be angry because of a truth rather than a lie we figured. He was, but at least he didn't give me a hiding, which he would have if I hadn't told him and he'd found out later from someone else.

Another thing that I was behind on when I came back from boarding school was that I'd never smoked. But all the kids (even Jenni and John, but not Bo) were sneaking them from Mum and Dad. So, being a dummy at that time, I got into it too and before long I was more hooked than any of them. One night, after everyone else was asleep and the lights were out, Katarina and I were sharing a sneaky puff in our bedroom where the floor boards had quarter inch gaps between them. Being on the bottom bunk it was my job to stuff our butt through the cracks when we were finished. Anyway Dad got up to go to the toilet and we heard him pause in the corridor. Straight away Katarina chucked the butt down to me and we held our breaths. "Who's smoking?" Man - absolute silence and stillness from Katarina, and there I was holding the bloody thing. So I shoved the still burning butt through a crack, grabbed a can of fly spray that we'd used for mosquitoes earlier, sprayed my mouth and choked out, "Not me." I could hear and feel Katarina's hysterical giggles above me. I guess Dad decided he didn't want to know or didn't want the hassle because he just made a growling noise and stomped off. It took us ages to get over the fright and the relief of it. Just as one of us would settle the other would start laughing and away we'd go. What fun.

At the end of 1973 Katarina and I left school together. Mum had secured both of us positions in the January 1974 student nurse intake at Kaitaia Hospital. So we both had to get holiday jobs to make the money needed to buy our textbooks, shoes, stockings. petticoats, etc. I went to work at an electrical factory in Auckland, and Katarina worked as a housekeeper for a lady up the road from Pawarenga who'd had a mastectomy to treat her breast cancer. In 1995 Katarina was to undergo a less radical partial mastectomy of her own. I wonder if she remembered Judy McCraith for whom she'd worked all those years earlier? I'm sure she must have. Anyway that was our first experience of earning our own money and we liked it.

In those days, for the first 6 months of training all nursing students had to spend the weekdays living in the Nurses Home, even married students. And it was run like a female boot camp - strict hours, regimented routines and absolutely no men, not even husbands. Each intake occupied a separate floor with 1st years on the bottom, 2nd years in the middle and the graduating class on the top floor. Our bedrooms were allocated alphabetically which put Katarina and I next door to each other. When you have 17 women, all but one being fresh out of school, living together there are consequences. One of them was that we were like honey to the bees. Boys and men were at the door day and night and the housekeepers were kept very busy. Occasionally the Police had to be called. One instance ended with Katarina and I having to give evidence in Court. The girl on the other side of me had dumped her boyfriend for another and he'd drunk himself into a vengeful mood. The first I knew of the whole affair was being woken by the sound of a gunshot. I sat up as a second shot sent shards of glass flying past me and realised it was coming through my window. All I could think of was to scream out, "Cathy! Don't stand up." That was my first thought and my worst fear. My sister was going to get shot if she got out of bed or came in to me. Next thing I heard sirens, the light in my room came on and there was a mob of people asking if I was alright. But all I wanted to know was if Katarina was alright. It turned out that it wasn't gunshots that had come through my window, but two bottles of beer. The boy was arrested, the girl next to me was blamed, and Katarina and I had a day in Court. Later Katarina befriended the boy and wrote to him while he was in borstal. When he got out she had a wee bit of trouble explaining to him that she was just being nice.

For all our relative sophistication we were often naive. For example in our 2nd year we spent two weeks in Whangarei doing our Public Health units. We had a bit more freedom by then and Katarina's current boyfriend, Robin Littlejohn, who lived in Whangarei showed us quite a bit of night life while we were there. At one party this guy sat next to me and asked if I was a nurse. "Yes," says I. Then he asked, "Do you drop tabs?" I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but not wanting to look stupid I tried to nut it out for myself. Then I got it - tabs ... T.A.B.! "No," says I, "I don't bet." He just looked at me disbelievingly and moved away. Later he approached Katarina and I saw her suddenly look around then sidle away from him. She came to me and whispered, "Have I got my mate?" She turned around so I could see. I told her no and asked what made her think she did. "Because," she says, "that guy just asked me if I'd dropped my tampon." He must have thought we were a complete pair of nanas.

Katarina and I worked well together on the Wards. We had an understanding of each other and I repected her work enormously. She was quite simply one of the best nurses I ever saw.

We graduated in October 1975 and a few months later I left for a job at North Shore Hospital in Auckland, while she stayed in Kaitaia. In 1977 she had her oldest daughter and named her Janine Anne. I was tickled pink. Mum had delivered our youngest brother just 4 months before. That was our Aaron who is almost 16 years younger than Jenni. So Aaron and Janine have always been more like brother and sister than uncle and niece. Katarina becoming a mother was the beginning of a new era in all our lives - parenthood with all the challenges that represents and for which no amount of preparation ever fully prepares one. Changes were now coming faster in all our lives and they haven't slowed down to this day.

In 1980 she met Dennis Chapman and in 1982 she gave birth to Michael. 8 weeks earlier I'd given birth to Chev, and in July Jenni had borne Cheye. So that was our 1982 crop of babies. Sam and Quest (Jenni's 2nd) followed in 1986 and Denise came along by herself in 1990. By then they were living busy lives share-milking way down in the Bay of Plenty, I'd become a Mormon and she was leaning towards the Jehovah's Witnesses. So, though we continued to write to each other and visited as often as possible, there were increasing gaps between us.

Then they came back to the north in 1993 and the gaps closed just like that. She did actually go on to be baptised as a Witness, but we never allowed it to be a division between us, instead sharing what we could of our commonalities.

Now in 2004 I look back on a lifetime shared with Katarina. She has survived so many things which are for her to tell, not me. If I'd had my wishes she would have been able to employ her old childhood trick of running away as fast and as far as possible from some of the bad things that inevitably came into her life. But of course that is not the way it works. We cannot stop hurts and mistakes and regrets coming into our own life or the lives of those we love. But we can always hold hands, sing our anthems of courage, cover for each other, say our prayers and look after each other.

Funny isn't it how the most lasting lessons are often learnt in childhood. I'm thankful to have learned them with Katarina.