V - Non-flying Doctors

Just as the Wright brothers invented flight Uncle Ronny claimed to
have invented the fear of flying. Uncle Ronny was a tiny man with huge
ears, just waiting for a punch line. It was often considered that this
would have aided his aerodynamics in the eventuality of an incident in
mid-air but he didn't care. The boat was the only option and as Uncle
Ronny and Auntie Smiley were not yet in receipt of Auntie Smiley's
legendary inheritance they travelled to the new world second class, in
the bottom of a rusty wreck without windows. This was, it is rumoured,
how my cousin Suzy came to be in possession of duel nationality. She
was, she would declare throughout her life, a true Australian, born
with in the sound of dingo's belching, if dingoes can be heard in the
middle of the Indian Ocean. The material reality that she only stepped
foot on those golden shores in a delivery room before her parents were
deported for reasons that cannot be excavated was discarded in favour
of the ritualistic abuse of all things English.

"A nation," she would say in times of war, "whose stiff upper lips make
them ill equipped for the essentials of drinking and singing and
kissing." She would demonstrate all three on anyone that she chose to
educate in that ways of her founding fathers. It was a sight. She was a
monument, a tourist attraction but the crowds kept to well trodden
paths and let erosion grid her down. She melted in the rain, again and
again, pined for the sun soaked beaches, harbour bridges and opera
houses. Suzy found nothing in the dark, warm-beer selling places, the
run down stations, the attention to safety. She doesn't cheer when we
score, she gets up at four to watch