Goodbye Junie Moon by Collins June

Author:Collins, June [Collins, June]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: June Collins
Published: 2012-06-12T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 27

AUSTRALIA

I left Toowoomba, hung-over and empty, convinced love was a farce. How could Peter dump me in a strange town and not even bother sending money to support me? As I didn’t know where he was, he was unaware I had miscarried our son. I left with no goodbyes.

Stepping to the gutter I threw up, wiped my mouth then stumbled on towards the Greyhound bus stop.

“When is the next bus due in?” I asked the ticket agent.

“Not for three more hours lady.”

“Where’s it going?”

“Brisbane.”

“Give me a one way ticket please.” I really did not care where it was going. I just wanted to get as far away from my life as possible.

Sitting on the bus I analyzed my situation. I would never go back to Peter and I would never marry again. I saw no point to marriage if I couldn’t have children. Since leaving Glen Barra, I had seldom written home, not wanting them to know my problems. They would disapprove of me leaving Peter. In the fifties, ‘decent’ people didn’t divorce. I was now a third generation marriage failure.

Falling in love had been my downfall! I abandoned all my dreams to be with Peter. But maybe that’s all they were – impossible dreams. Did I run to him to escape? Or did I run from the fear of not being able to make it alone? Or maybe fear that Dennis had blackened my name? I had to stop allowing a faint heart to impede me. Love would never again make me falter.

Houses appeared among the trees as the bus approached Brisbane. I took a deep breath. It was time to take a new name for the new me. Peter’s name of Skewes had to go. My father had deserted us so his name was out. The only man who never hurt me was my step-dad, Bake. I would adopt his name, Collins. I whispered softly to myself “Goodbye, June Skewes. Hello June Collins.”

Fate was never far away. Days after I arrived in Brisbane I saw an advertisement in the Courier Mail for dance instructor trainees at Arthur Murray’s Dance Studios. My mother had sacrificed for years to have Clarice and I taught dancing when we lived in Sydney. I could put all those early dance lessons to good use.

The studio manager hired me immediately. Every day I trained for long hours until I was sufficiently skilled to commence teaching.

People from the southern states, especially the city dwellers of Sydney and Melbourne, used to scorn Queenslanders, calling them ‘banana benders’. This reference was directed at the state’s many banana and sugar cane growers. Queensland had minimal industry and tourism was yet to become big. Few Australians had money for holidays. The 'southerners' ridiculed Brisbane as a big country town and further south, The Gold Coast was little more than a coastal village. The ‘Queenslander’ houses were elevated on ‘sticks’, allowing the air to circulate below, supposedly to cool them. I loved the houses, loved the warmer climate, and didn’t mind being called a hick.

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