I'm standing in Mother Superior's office as a little boy beside a big statue of Jesus with his right hand raised above me in peace. To my left, stood a much taller kid who I've never had much to do with except in the game of British bulldogs in the back field.
Beside Mother Superior stood a small skinny dark-skinned woman dressed in a white dress with red shoes. As she stood there, I noticed she began to cry and tears rolled down her face.
"Peter, Paul, this is your mother Elizabeth! Elizabeth this is your son Paul and this is your son Peter. He is your youngest Elizabeth!"
Just then our mother dropped to her knees sobbing and pulled us both into her arms mumbling words I didn't understand. This was my first memory of meeting my Aboriginal mother on the grounds of St Joseph Boys Home run by the Sisters of Nazareth in Sebastopol.
Aritist and writer Peter Clarke. Source: Supplied
When I was a little boy living in Ballarat, Victoria, I was made a ward of the state at two months old and spent the next seventeen years growing up in orphanages and children's homes.
Two years had passed since that day of meeting my mother and brother. It was now 1976 and I'm aged seven. I'm lying next to the swimming pool daydreaming of owning a poster of Farrah Fawcett in her red swimming suit.
As I began wiping my eyes from the bright white sunlight and Farrah, I felt Sister Felix's eyes looking straight at me from across the pool. From a tanned black kid to an instant white skinned boy I went. I had to think quick as I felt Sister Felix would see though my thoughts and slap the black off me.
To us boys, she was known as Sister Felix the Cat and boy did she have claws. She was definitely one of the many nuns to avoid.
If a nun wanted to punish you she could. A simple telephone call to a parent or holiday host would be made informing them that you were too ill to leave and you would stay in the dorms over the weekend cleaning up corridors and toilets.
Art work by artist Peter Clarke. Source: Peter Clarke
When it came to sleeping, the Sisters required all children to kneel beside their beds and to say the Lord's prayer. Once the nuns had done their rounds and turned in for the night, silently we would lay awake listening out for creeping nuns in the corridors. When all was quiet and only the oil pipes could be heard cracking, someone would let off a loud sloppy wet fart and we would all burst into laughter.
Just then I heard the sounds of stampeding feet in the corridor coming our way and then suddenly silence. There in the doorway stood the tall, dark silhouette figures of the bigger boys all holding pillows in their hands and then someone yells out "Attack!" The next thing you know, it's on for the young and old. I'm not too sure how many biffings us little kids took that night but finally as exhaustion beat us all and the last boy crawled on the floor to bed, just like that the room fell silent again.
"What's the toy you want me to get?" whispered Claudio from his bed.
Art work by artist Peter Clarke. Source: Peter Clarke.
I told him "Gigantor" and I fell off to sleep. Every Sunday morning before porridge was service, we first had to attend church where Friar Kelly bored the life out of us. Some joined the choir boys out front singing while others struggled awake occasionally falling over when bowing their heads to God. I liked looking at all the beautiful colours in the leadlight windows that filled our church.
Those reflections of the morning sunlight on green, blue, brown, yellow and red all helped shape me to go on and become the Aboriginal artist I am today. Later that night I found out that Claudio had been home released and not moved on to another dormitory like some thought.
One day when I was nine or ten, one of the nuns told me to go and pack my bags and jump on the bus.
It felt strange that night as I sat on my new bed looking at the three strangers all looking back at me. One of them said: "I'm Trout! That's Gordy and he's Dwayne. What's your name?" Those were the first words my good friend Trout asked me on my very first night in the Baxter Wing of the Ballarat Children's home.
My new home didn't have crosses and religious statues towering over me night and day.
Art work by Peter Clarke. Source: Supplied
Instead, it was Bon Scott, David Bowie and ELO poster plastered over the walls.
And just where Gordy slept was a poster of Farrah Fawcett in her red swimming suit looking down at me smiling. Thank you, Jesus!
Peter Clarke was born in a small country town called Heywood in western Victoria. He is from the Gunditjmara Nation and his mob are Saltwater People who live along the coast of Victoria. His mother was raised on the Lake Condah mission.
This article is part of the First Nations Writers’ collection, a specially curated series chosen from the 2020 SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition submissions.
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