Mum had her voices. And I had my tapes

Updated

This is a story about what it was like to grow up watching my mum break down — and the magical machine that opened a window to a better place.

At 12, I knew no-one else had a life like mine. I had a life no-one was supposed to have.

I wished for a brother, for anyone, to tell me what to do.

How to cope with Mum.

Her vagueness, her noises. The hissing, swearing, grinding teeth. That howling crying.

Her worst.

This wasn't like any problem on a sitcom. This wasn't mentioned at school.

Beware of strangers and monsters. But what if the stranger is your mum and her spirits become the monster?

No. This was too much. Too big.

This was a battle of survival being played out in a tiny brick unit in north-west Tasmania.

I grew up in Burnie in the 1980s.

Mum had paranoid schizophrenia.

We never called it that though. We didn't even call it mental illness.

She was either 'well' or 'not well'.

When Mum was sick she'd lay on the bed and I couldn't get her up, no matter how much I nagged. No matter how much she promised.

I was an only child — so who could I tell?

How could I convey the rib-grabbing tightness of my worry, the pendulum chaos of gloom?

Who could understand the rainbow bleed of hope, that somehow, some time, things might get better.

A magical nurse at the door.

A helper with a cure.

A cure for Mum.

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I had no choice.

I had to record it, somehow.

My life. This — grey — now.

Who I was, inside.

I knew I wasn't a kid anymore.

I was something else.

I was hopelessly wise to the pitfalls and paradoxes of grownups. Their endless histories, their excuses, their lectures, their failures.

Sure, I looked young, but I felt a universe in my bones.

I lived in a world where the minds of those you held dear could so easily, so repeatedly, break.

Nan and Pop (plus Blossum the cat) were my support network.

I never called them that but I called them up when Mum wouldn't stop crying.

I saw them on the weekends. This left the weekdays.

The interminable empty afternoons, jumping on the trampoline, alone with madness.

When Mum was well, we were a team.

She'd check my spelling, scratch my back, tuck my tag in. She'd read to me, laughing at our favourite pink and blue rabbits, Rumples and Tumbles.

We were joined at the funny bone.

Contentment was being handed my favourite egg and toast in my beanbag as Beyond 2000 came on a Sunday night.

The atmosphere of happiness. I soaked in it.

Electric blanket on three. Rain on the roof. The weight of a cat on my feet. These moments, these days.

Life, with Mum at the centre.

We were two people trying to love each other, but mental illness kept getting in the way.

Maureen, the only daughter of Edna and Len (Nan and Pop), wasn't just my Mum, she was a good mum.

She trained to be a mothercraft nurse. Care and devotion was in her heart.

That's why it hurts.

That's why I'll never ... quite get over it.

Coming home to find the window open, the curtain blowing in the night.

Realising that once again something had broken into our house while I was at school, while I was asleep. Mum had slipped out, and I was home alone with a person I didn't understand.

A ghost in the shape of love, who made sad Mum food and said dumb angry things.

Mum holds onto everything.

Drawings, toys, grudges.

Sometimes she's Big Bird.

Sometimes she's Oscar the Grouch.

With those eyes.

I needed something hard. Something permanent.

I found it in a black-buttoned machine whose primary purpose was to record.

To store the only information I considered valuable — the words of those I loved.

A roomful of life with me at the helm. In the middle. At the ready.

Being loved and laughing loud.



The red light. We're on!

This isn't disappearing.

Not this time.

This day's gonna live forever.

Forever young.

Mum had her voices.

I had my tapes.

I collected my family.

Their voices at least.

I captured their vibrations on a special magnetic ribbon.

This wound round a wheel to form a reel.

The tape orbited smoothly inside a case when docked inside the carriage of a machine.

A time machine, with a knack for blasting the past.

My recordings began when I was eight, coinciding with the arrival of a red Sharp QT-27 stereo for my birthday.

One afternoon at Nan and Pop's — the day after the Caufield Cup, 1988 — I decided to start recording while it was sitting on the kitchen bench.

I sat quietly as life carried on as normal. I liked the idea that everything was happening in double — once in real life and once on tape.

I was trapping the conversation to listen back to later. It was a game that could keep me company.

When Mum got sick and disappeared, I often felt like I wasn't anywhere. At least now I was somewhere. I was on tape!

The tape deck soon became my prized possession.

It was packed ahead of my guitar and cricket bat on car trips.

For my 12th birthday I'd gotten a slick black boombox with double cassette deck, high speed dubbing and a clearer microphone. It still had the tell-tale red light, which could be spotted by Nan's beady eye no matter how many cushions I put over the top.

"Have you got that thing on again, you rotten little cow!"

I'd laugh and press pause, waiting for her to get distracted so I could press record again.

I was pretty cheeky but as an otherwise responsible and clever boy, it was mostly taken as a bit of fun.

If I caught Nan or Pop swearing then that was a bonus 50 points!

"Gotcha!" I'd chirp.

At night, I'd pop in my headphones and close my eyes and wait for the campfire static as the ribbon rolled on.

A universe of memory blossomed as I wrapped myself up in the blanket of the past.

Nan and Pop were back! I was in their lounge, and I was the star of the show.

I'd laugh along with 'tape Justin', grasping hold of Nan's slurry, funny words and Pop's friendly, baritone chatter.

"Back after the break!"

I spoke to the mic like Daryl Somers hosting Hey Hey It's Saturday.

On New Year's Eve I ran down to the barbecue, where I'd left the tape rolling, but everyone was inside. The red light was still on. My silent cyclops. What would people think! They might be getting lonely.

"Well that's it guys everyone's packed up and gone. Hope you've enjoyed the recording of New Year's Eve and I hope I celebrate many more with you. Ciao dudes!"

I wasn't sure who the dudes might be, but I knew someone was out there, inside the speakers.

One day I'd get to meet them.

Those imaginary people who cared.

What happened to my grown-ups?

My grown-ups have blown up.

Blew away

flew apart

off the chart.

Hold onto my tape.

My little brown ribbon

a magic carpet

as wide as your smile

as long as your love.

It's catching us

it's catching us as we speak

and spin and sputter.

It's catching our shells and our leaves

and our spit and our sparks and

our skin and our heat;

everything that's flying off us as we

hurtle through time.

By grade seven I'd built up an impressive tape carousel.

One rainy Saturday I made my own mixtape. I gathered the best bits and dubbed them together to make 'Heazlewood Highlights'.

I introduced each segment — from Uncle Nigel breaking a beer bottle to the family playing Yahtzee.

Now, whenever I missed everyone I could pop in my highlights reel and head straight for the good stuff.

This included scenes from my golden 'super-prize-tape' of Crayfish Creek caravan trip, January 1993 (cassette one of two).

I'd finished primary school and was excited about starting grade seven. The whole family were together for the first time in the tiny recording studio of the Jayco pop-top.

I'm running amok, Nan's going crazy about the mozzies, Uncle Nigel's cracking gags.

Mum has the least lines.

She took her sickness camping.

Once I left home for the mainland, I stopped listening to my childhood.

With distance my tapes grew unfamiliar.

I was a soft-brained, scatter-hearted adult who didn't have time to hang out with a 12-year-old.

If anything, I was trying to forget.

In my 30s, something changed. I felt sick from life travelling so fast. I needed to press stop.

I opened up the shoebox of tapes, that had travelled from share house to share house.

I realised 12-year-old Justin had left a trail of breadcrumbs for someone to find.

My cassette recorder was a time machine crossed with a time capsule.

All I had to do was slip in my earphones and operate the cockpit. Eject. Insert. Reverse. Play.

My good time capsule!

So tiny, I can swallow it

and travel back

to the

birth of

my memory of you.

I already know too much.

My heart has woken.

It is wise.

It is worried.

'I will miss you too much.'

I love my family so much it scares me.

I was there.

I was listening.

I was trying to

love you better

and make you happy.

Closing my eyes, I could see it was all there, just as I'd left it. The budgie chirping, Pop clearing his throat, Nan telling a story. Mum — almost too soft to pick up.

Now there was an extra grown-up in the room.

I stood there, watching, weeping, desperate to reach out and protect that isolated dude who wasn't always given the support he needed.

At times I was furious, dejected, but mostly I was entertained. Little 'Heazy' wanted his tapes to be fun.

As a document they're not only historical but hysterical. Nan cheering on Boonie's classic catch, Uncle Nigel encouraging me to play chicken with cars, me singing That's Freedom by Farnsey.

Unlike scars, laughter disappears. All that beautiful, lost air.

The tapes are the sound of my smile. They capture the boy in a butterfly net, preserving the person I was.

There is something genius about my 12-year-old self. Wise beyond my years, yet to be corrupted by the sweat of adolescence.

My motor mouth rattling off witticisms and giggling at fluffs — armed with a Super Soaker 50 and a near-dying sparkler, pelted high in the sky.

Alas, the tape runs out. The machine returns me to ground. I'm alone, with grains of memories sprinkled in my hair.

People like to ask what state Mum is in now.

"Tasmania," I tell them.

We're closer than we've ever been, but living very much apart.

I love hearing Mum's voice, when she was young, when she was well.

Her lilt has the aura of a unicorn's portrait. The tenderness of angel prints. Move over, man. There's a Mum in the Moon.

Listening to the tapes helps me relax as a grown-up.

It reminds me that while the tunnel of time stretches on, the door to my cubby house remains. (Password: TDK.)

Oh, for a sleep deep enough that I could go back and give myself a handshake, a high five and a hug.

It's good to tell this story, but there's a new emptiness inside. The soft hiss of a blank tape.

Writing has been my own head cleaner, clearing out the dust from the decks.

How about I dub you a copy and you can see how it sounds on your system.

Credits

Author : Justin Heazlewood for RN's Life Matters. Justin has also written about his experience in the memoir Get Up Mum.

: Justin Heazlewood for RN's Life Matters. Justin has also written about his experience in the memoir Get Up Mum. Editor and digital producer : Monique Ross

: Monique Ross Illustrator : Tim Madden

: Tim Madden Photography : Supplied/Justin Heazlewood; Monique Ross; Supplied/Elise Derwin

: Supplied/Justin Heazlewood; Monique Ross; Supplied/Elise Derwin With thanks to: Simon Brown, Catherine Pryor, Tim Leslie and James Maasdorp

Topics: people, mental-health, health, community-and-society, family-and-children, human-interest, burnie-7320, tas, australia

First posted