After my sister died, my niece found a large box of papers relating to my mother. She promised to keep it aside for me. I decided to drive to Melbourne during the school holidays and collect the box. I thought I was ready for whatever awaited me.
When I opened my Pandora’s Box containing documents and photos relating to my mother’s life, I felt the equilibrium I had guarded so carefully begin to falter. Feelings of confusion and unease came at me like a dust devil. My first reaction was to shut the lid quickly and contain the storm. Even imagining what might be inside began to wreak havoc with my mind. Without realising, my mother’s curse from when I was sixteen made me not want to touch the contents. Her words flooded back, ‘remember this for as long as you live. I curse every single object I have ever touched.’ Yet I knew I had to face whatever the box contained and I would do so in my own time. What I knew for certain was that I would not be taking the box home with me. If I did, I might never find the courage to open it again.
The square, floral box contained the paltry remnants of her life. Expired British passports in the name of Catherine Raftery, dozens of letters from a friend called Edith who lived in Austria but wrote in Hungarian, psychiatric reports that contributed to the State Trustees taking charge of her affairs as her guardian, and a photo album in which the only person I recognised was my mother growing older as I turned the pages. None of it made sense to me. What was I expecting? A photo album with pictures of myself, my sister and my father? She had remarried, travelled the world, lived on a farm for a while until her husband died. Then she spent the last eight or so years living with my sister, where she is remembered for often being drunk and argumentative. She died when she was 89 years old. I had been in her life for no more than ten or eleven years.
The psychiatric reports make for some interesting reading. My mother gave different versions of her life prior to meeting Patrick Raftery. In 2005 in a psychiatric report my mother stated that ‘her husband [my father] became involved in drug use and committed suicide in 1975. She was distressed by his death.’ Then, ‘she remained in contact with her daughters by letter.’ Neither statement is true, and the date my mother gave for my father’s death was wrong too.
In 2007, a psychiatrist stated that ‘Mrs Raftery’s account of her background was at times difficult to follow.’ This time, my mother claimed that she moved to Austria and then to Australia in 1971 with her daughter Palma. She then married again in 1977. In this version, there is no mention of my father or me. The psychiatrist also stated that ‘Mrs Raftery denies symptoms of depression, anxiety, elevated mood and psychosis.’
Marrying Patrick Raftery not only gave my mother a new name but also gave her access to the European Union through her British passport before Brexit. She could travel back to Hungary and stay for as long as she pleased. She may have lived in Australia but her identity remained firmly Hungarian.
My roots have always been more complex. My parents were refugees from Hungary, a place they called their homeland, but I was a refugee in my birth place and every place I have lived since. I became an Australian citizen when I was 18, but it took many more years to grow into myself and find my own way of being in the world. A passport could make me a citizen, but by itself it wasn’t enough to bridge that no man’s land in my heart. Perhaps that is why I think so often about what it means to belong.
Today, at the Canberra Writers’ Festival, I heard a striking answer to that question from Ian Hamm, an eminent Yorta Yorta man from Shepparton. When asked, ‘What is one good thing about being Aboriginal?’ he answered, ‘I know where I belong,’ or maybe he said, ‘I know I belong.’ He uttered these words with unshakable confidence, even though he is a survivor of the Stolen Generation. Belonging to his Country and his People is an ancestral inheritance that no one can take away from him. There is a profound beauty in that surety of belonging. His answer took my breath away. It filled me with a deep reverence and quiet longing.
It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish. S. I. Hayakawa
I love reading. I always have. From the moment I could read, my nose has been happiest pointing to a page in a book. And yes, I do love smelling them too! From an early age, I discovered that reading could bring me more sustained pleasure than any other activity. I not only read stories, I became one of the characters, sharing in their experiences and joining in their adventures. Through books I led many lives, explored jungles, sailed on ships, had a different family and experienced freedom. This is what reading for pleasure can do for a child.
Sadly, research shows a long-term decline in children’s enjoyment of reading. A 2025 UK study by the National Literacy Trust found that only one in three children and young people aged eight to eighteen enjoyed reading in their free time. This was the lowest level in 20 years. Although the 2026 findings show a small improvement, enjoyment remains low. Yet we know that reading is important not only for future academic success but also for emotional wellbeing. There is also some evidence that reading fiction may help children develop empathy.
Another piece of the reading puzzle is the reading habits of parents. When children see their parents read, they grow up believing that reading is a part of life. When my daughter was about seven, she watched me read Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. She too wanted to read a book that was as thick as that paperback. I took her to the local bookshop and we bought a copy of the collected Milly-Molly-Mandy stories. When she finished her book before I finished mine, she was so proud of herself for beating her mother in our thick-book reading race!
Now a mother herself, she is passing on the reading bug. My granddaughter has her own bookshelf filled with books which she loves to pull out and ‘read’. She already holds a book the right way around, turns the pages and enjoys looking at the pictures. Both her mother and father read to her and, to make things interesting, I read to her in German. Of all her toys, books are what she gravitates towards, and she can spend a long time looking at them without getting bored.
My hope for her is that she keeps enjoying books, that they transport her to many different places and that, through the power of imagination, she is able to live as many lives as she wishes.
I’ve been away for the best part of a week. On my return, I was greeted by a blanket of yellow daisy-like flowers in the reserve across the road. My first reaction was that they looked quite pretty, but of course a plant springing up in such numbers points to a weed infestation. A quick Google search informed me that I was looking at Capeweed. While we consider it a weed here in Australia in South African, it is a pretty little native wild flower by the name of Arctotheca calendula. The name Capeweed alludes the Cape of Good Hope.
A weed is simply an unwanted plant growing in the wrong place. Some weeds, of course, are much worse for the environment than others, especially those that take moisture and nutrients away from neighbouring plants or displace natives. However, even weeds have their place. Capeweed often grows where the soil has been disturbed, quite possibly by the foot traffic of us dog owners in the area. For now, it covers patches of bare ground and where grass used to be, though it will die back in summer. Our four-footed friends may also carry its seeds further afield. Yes, it indicates an imbalance in that particular ecosystem, but that is hardly surprising in a built-up urban area.
Some weeds have useful functions, such as dandelions, which can be used in salads or made into tea or a caffeine-free coffee substitute. Mint is another example of a plant that can be useful in cooking but can take over a garden in no time, becoming a pesky weed. I have spent many a day pulling unwanted mint from my garden even though I love mint tea.
I am lucky that I don’t have to deal with Capeweed in my garden. It can be difficult to pull out because of its deep taproot. If the root breaks, the plant soon returns. But across the road, I can admire the yellow flowers and be happy for the bees and the young girls who sit and make daisy chains. Perhaps, like beauty, a weed is in the eye of the beholder.
The microclimates of different suburbs are most recognisable at this time of year. In some places, the trees are only just moving from budding to flowering, while in others the open blossoms are already wind-blown and slowly moving to the next part of their cycle. Blink and you are likely to miss it.
One morning a fortnight ago, I was delighted to come across a naturalised fruit tree on my dog-walking path. From its pale blossoms and distinctive magenta centres, it is most likely an almond tree. In the few years that I have been here, the tree has not grown much. Yet every spring, it puts on a magnificent show for all who walk past it. On a whim, I took a photo of the blossoms and sent it to my cousin, for whom the season is also changing. His world is moving towards the cool of autumn.
This morning, as I walked the dog, I stopped at the tree to have another look. I was surprised to see that many of the flowers had dropped and the tree no longer looked as glorious as it had. All in the space of two weeks. It made me think of the changes we all go through, hardly noticeable from day to day until we look in the mirror and realise how much the person looking back has changed. Viewed through the lens of the seasons, this makes perfect sense. Why should we be surprised when we, too, are part of nature’s great cycle? Perhaps the scraggly little tree had not lost its glory at all. It was simply moving into its next season, as we all are.
Whenever I return from Europe, it is the daily punctuation of bells that I miss. From churches and town halls, they mark the passing hours and quarter hours. For centuries, their sound helped people keep track of time, long before clocks and watches became common.
When I saw an advertisement to tour the National Carillon here in Canberra, I immediately signed up. I had no idea that traditional carillons were so rare as I have worked at Sydney University where I heard the Carillon played daily and I also worked at Bathurst where one of my friends is a carillonist. I never realised how privileged I was to have heard all three of the traditional carillons in Australia.
To be classed as a carillon, the instrument must have at least 23 bronze bells and be played by hand using a baton keyboard. The carillonist strikes the baton with the bottom of a loose fist and may also play some notes with foot pedals. The National Carillon has 57 bells and today I had the pleasure of playing some random notes that reverberated across a couple of nearby suburbs. The highlight of the tour was taking the lift into the belltower and seeing the largest bells that ring out majestically over Lake Burley Griffin. The biggest bell weighs six tonnes, and I felt its rich resonance with my whole body.
I savour their varied voices, some high pitched and almost tinny, others with tones so low that they feel like pure vibration. To stop and listen until the last reverberation dissipates is a habit I have learned to nurture. I first came across it in Buddhist meditation, where the bell is a reminder to return to the present. And so, for a moment, I allow myself to be enveloped in pure sound and simply be.
I never carry cash. As a result, I don’t even carry a purse. I do have one but it stays at home like some relic from the past. Yet I remember never leaving the house without one in my handbag or back pocket. My father, a leatherworker, made my purses and handbags throughout my teens. They were always prized possessions. He never let me leave the house without a coin in my purse. It was his way of keeping me safe.
Today, I met a friend who asked me to buy her a newspaper. She gave me a twenty dollar note which I really didn’t want to take but she insisted. Carefully, I put it in the pocket of my sweatshirt. As I walked, I kept putting my hand in the pocket to feel for the note. As I neared the shop, I felt uneasy and decided to move the money to another pocket for safekeeping. For once I listened to that insistent inner voice.
At the cash register, I went to fish out the twenty-dollar note. It wasn’t in the pocket. I had lost the money! My first reaction was to feel foolish. Why did I move it from the pocket where it had been perfectly safe? Why did I listen to that insistent inner voice? Then, a far more rational thought calmed me. What difference would that twenty dollars make to how I live this day or even the week ahead? The impact was negligible. It was annoying but no great loss.
Many years ago, when I had nothing, finding even a five-dollar bill would have felt like a miracle. I remember taking a tram to a job interview with 40 cents in my pocket. That was the price of the one-way ticket. After the interview, I walked the eight kilometres back home in shoes I had borrowed from a friend. It took me longer than two hours. My feet blistered, and every step was agony. Wistfully, I watched the trams rattle past me.
I look back at that young girl with compassion and would love to let her know that one day she would no longer have to count her pennies. Today I hope with all my heart that someone in need has found that money and that it will feel like a small miracle come true.
A chance email from my uncle’s granddaughter led to a summer evening in a Budapest café filled with the unexpected joy of recognition. Szilvia had chosen a distinctive café with books on every wall, comfy chairs and an upright piano in a corner. Straight away, I felt at home.
We smiled and embraced, curious to finally meet each other. Szilvia was delighted to meet someone who was related to her, someone who actually knew her grandparents on her father’s side. I too was glad to make the connection, as my father would have been her great uncle. I know so little about my father’s side of the family that any link is a bond to be treasured. Szilvia clearly felt the same way.
My cousin Atti, from my mother’s side of the family, came with me and was witness to our recognition of one another. Although from different sides of the family, there was a common thread running through our little triad. The three of us share much the same sensibility. Opening up to each other came easily to us. It turns out we are all readers, lovers of music and theatre. As a gift, Szilvia brought me a Hungarian novel by an author whose work she admires. I can’t wait to read it.
Being part of a small family where secrets are archaeological, every encounter with a relative feels like fossicking for fragments of the past. Szilvia was hoping that I had some clues about her father and I was hoping she could tell me more about my father’s family. We drew blanks, cursed the secrecy surrounding both branches of our family and wept for ourselves and each other as we tried to make sense of the inexplicable gaps concerning our identity.
She told me of her childhood, the alcoholism that plagued her family the way it plagued mine and we spoke of the trauma that has been passed down from one generation to the next. Her own adult life has had its fair share of heartache but she has come through it with compassion for others and a gentleness that I admire. Like me, she questions herself and my hope for her is that she accepts herself for that wonderfully imperfect, beautiful person who she is.
My sister died suddenly but it was not unexpected. She had a series of health issues that plagued her but none of them were necessarily fatal. It was both the combination of these ailments, and her stubborn refusal to do anything about them, that led to her passing. It is easy to say that she chose the path to self-destruction but of course it was much more complicated than that.
Born in Hungary in 1950, she was a post-war baby in a ravaged country where everything was still scarce. Her father had left while our mother was pregnant and by the time she was born two months premature, my mother did not want her either. ‘Throw it against the wall,’ she’d say, then throw her head back and laugh. This was how she always recounted the birth of my sister. Her aunt Vicki, who acted as her midwife, did no such thing. Instead she stoked up the fire and kept the room hot so that the little girl would survive.
True to her word, my mother did not want anything to do with her daughter. She left her in her aunt’s care, where the young child was loved and treated as if she were one of her own. I don’t know whether my mother visited often or at all but in the meantime, she met my father who had lost his wife to tuberculosis in the late 40s. The chemistry sparked between them and during the 1956 revolution they decided to risk their lives and flee the country. It was at this point that my mother returned to Aunt Vicki and took the child from her.
My sister was christened Palma Anastasia. Nobody really knows why. Both are unusual names in Hungary. She was always known by a shortened version of her middle name, Naszti, which later caused her to change her name to Palma and eventually to Pam because she was tired of people getting her name wrong. This was yet another layer of her identity that was stripped from her.
Little Naszti went from a stable loving home to running across mountains with a people smuggler, gunshots echoing behind her. Once ‘safe’ in Austria, she waited in a refugee camp with her mother whom she barely knew and a man she had hardly met. Eventually they were resettled in Luxembourg where she had to learn the three official languages, French, German and Letzeburgisch. Then, when she was ten years old, I was born.
Unfortunately for her, the chemistry that sparked between my parents soon became explosive and my mother often used her to create division between them.
‘He doesn’t love you the way he loves your sister. You’re not of his blood.’
I am surprised she was able to love me as much as she did, considering all the things she was told. My sister, however, was a gentle soul then and wanted to protect me above all else. In fact, as a ten-year-old, she took on much of the mothering responsibilities while my mother worked.
Her world was once again turned upside down when she was fourteen. After a disastrous business venture, my parents fled to Spain to escape bankruptcy. Another language to learn, new school, new friends to make. She was also watching my parents’ marriage implode. When my father and I disappeared one day, she was left with my grieving mother. She searched everywhere for her second daughter and when she found me a year later, my sister was left behind in Madrid to fend for herself at sixteen.
After another ill-fated reunion, this time in Austria, she left for London to work as an au pair at age seventeen. There was another language to learn and she couldn’t keep her name which sounded too much like ‘nasty’ to the English. She began using Palma and eventually Pam to fit in. At eighteen, she met her husband, a Sicilian chef nine years her senior. They married and within a year, I was sent to them for a year so I could learn English. They paid for my private school costs, all other expenses and put up with a miserable homesick child who really didn’t want to be there. My sister wasn’t equipped to look after my emotional needs, but then she was barely more than a child herself. At nineteen, I didn’t do any better looking after the younger siblings of my friends. It wasn’t my sister’s fault; my parents should have known better.
We migrated to Australia in 1971 and she followed within a year with her husband and baby son. While my family life unravelled amid my parents’ ongoing fights and eventual separation, hers seemed to flourish. They moved to the outskirts of Melbourne and life seemed to be going well for her. They built a house, had another child, bought a business and began to establish wealth. I didn’t see her for about six years during this period as I chose to stay with my father. We didn’t have a phone or car and I am not even sure that I had her address.
When we finally re-established contact, she was a mother of two living in suburbia. We didn’t have much in common but we loved each other. I became more involved with her daughter whom I regularly took to my place for sleepovers and ballet lessons. My sister took on more and more of the Italian traits of her husband’s heritage. They spoke Italian at home, she saw herself as the matriarch but was never really accepted by the broader Italian family. No matter how much she tried, she could never become one of their tribe.
I didn’t see everything that happened behind closed doors. My brother-in-law was loud and demanding. He always got what he wanted. I know he didn’t treat his wife kindly. He worked hard and she was expected to do whatever had to be done behind the scenes for his businesses. If anything was not to his liking, she would know about it. I never saw him hit her but his children did. I think she just got tired of a transactional marriage and saw no way out for herself.
When our mother became old and disoriented, my sister took her in. She looked after her for years with the patience of a saint. Our mother had never been easy but in her old age she became ever more demanding, nasty and often drunk. No matter where the alcohol was hidden, she would sniff it out. It became a constant source of friction between my sister and her family yet she could never find the heart to put her in a home.
Food became a source of comfort and over the years she gained a great deal of weight. She always loved fried food, bread, pasta and sweets. About three years ago, she was diagnosed with diabetes. She struggled to manage her diabetes and often forgot to check her levels.
Like her husband, she was a chain smoker which eventually led to emphysema. Smoking helped her regulate her mood. She continued to smoke even after her husband died of lung cancer. She probably had a smoke in bed the night before she died. ‘What else do I have left?’ she would say to herself.
I’m not sure when she discovered poker machines. She certainly kept it a secret from us all. I used to get frustrated with her stories of break-ins, cleaning ladies stealing jewellery, people stealing her bag or wallet out of the car, often with the weekly takings of the shop in her possession. How could anyone have such bad luck, I would think. At times she would ring in a panic and ask for a loan for something she couldn’t tell her husband about. Whenever I could, I obliged, never thinking that there was another reason behind her constant bad luck with money.
Once the truth came out, her relationship with her children was damaged and her husband was furious. She had lost well over a million dollars and suddenly they went from being well off to having to work to keep the roof over their heads. The last time I saw her she told me that gambling blocked everything out of her mind and for the hours she was there, she did not think about how miserable she felt. In the end, it left her asset rich in a large house without the money she needed for its upkeep. She relied on foodbanks to get her through to her next pension cheque.
She discovered love about four years ago when she met a much older man. He is in his 90s and has outlived her. While they seemed happy in each other’s company, her daughter had concerns about the relationship and did not approve. As it turned out, he was too frail to look after my sister or to live on his own so he moved to Gippsland to live with his daughter. He kept in touch over the phone and occasionally would visit her. My sister confided in me that he was the first gentle man she had encountered.
It is painful to admit that she was never truly happy. Our phone calls were always about the latest aches and pains, the terrible state of affairs in … (insert the latest hot spot), and how ungrateful her children were. I dreaded these conversations. Her hearing aid never worked well, the TV was always on high volume in the background and I had no chance of getting a word in. She stopped going out and her world shrunk to her four walls.
I tried to talk to her about our family but she steered clear of painful memories. As with so many members of my family, whatever she knew is now forever lost. I have come back from Hungary with photographs I have never seen before, and I was looking forward to asking my sister who these people were. I was hoping to drive to Melbourne in late September to talk to her about my recent trip. Now there is no one left to ask. The people in those photographs will remain unnamed, another missing piece in the puzzle that is my family.
My daughter loves Norway. She visits whenever she can. For a while now, she has asked me join her on a trip as she wanted me to understand her deep longing for this country. The opportunity finally came this year when I started thinking of visiting friends and family in Europe. With the efficiency of a seasoned traveller, she booked the accommodation, organised the car hire and presented me with a two-week itinerary. All I had to do was get on a plane to Bergen.
My first impressions of Bergen were of charming timber houses painted red, yellow, blue and green but mostly an ochre red. Much later, I discovered that the prevalence of red had an economic reason; it was the cheapest house paint to produce. Now of course, it has become a tourist drawcard as people from all over the world admire the brightly coloured houses.
We began our trip in earnest following fjords along the coast, going through mountains or under waterways using the extensive arrangement of tunnels along the way. We began to count them and after a while we rated each one from 1-5. My favourite was tunnel number 14, which had an elegant entrance and a stunning view at the exit. It was a fun activity discussing the merits of each tunnel as we drove north through spectacular countryside.
Norway is exactly as you expect it to be from the photos you see. Majestic mountains, fjords and off shore islands wherever you look, dear little timber houses dotted on grassy slopes, virtually 24 hours of sunlight in summer. What you don’t expect, even when you have been warned, is the high cost of living as virtually all consumables are imported. Unlike in the rest of Europe where you can save money by going to supermarkets and cooking your own food, in Norway, even supermarket items are ludicrously expensive. Pretty soon our mantra became, ‘oh, it cost $100’, for it seemed impossible to buy anything below that price.
We stayed at a variety of Airbnbs, some of which will stay with me for the hospitality and kindness of the host. Two farm stays were the most memorable in part because of the surrounding countryside. We did small hikes, went up 1000 metres in one of the steepest skylifts at Loen, where the incline at times was 60 degrees. From there we marvelled at the mountain vistas with glaciers in the distance.
We followed the road to the mountain plateau at Stigrøra, from which the descent was along the famous Trollstigen or Troll’s pass. While it looked hair-raising from atop the mountain, the actual trip down was quite enjoyable, but then I wasn’t driving down the hair-pin bends. Surprisingly, it wasn’t at all terrifying as I had feared.
Our trip ended in Trondheim, where we stayed for a few days. After spending time in the countryside, it was refreshing to get to a city with some cultural places to explore. I visited museums, churches, a synagogue and took a lovely walk through the old part of the city with my daughter and family before returning to a patisserie and treating everyone to a kanelsnurr, a delicious, twisted cinnamon scroll which I am determined to learn to make.
I am glad my daughter convinced me to go as I would never have gone on my own. There is definitely more to write about this trip but for the time being, this is enough. This holiday has brought me closer to my daughter as I have a deeper appreciation of her love of Norway now that I have walked along some of her favourite places.
Mushrooms are popping up everywhere. In parks and gardens, you can find them under trees and sometimes out in the open fields. There are quite a few types I have noticed. Some that look like the edible field mushrooms, others that are brown and crinkly and others still that look like orange peel. There are also plenty of signs warning people of the death cap mushroom which is prevalent in Canberra. It is the world’s deadliest mushroom, with a mortality rate up to 50% for those who have consumed it.
I have become wary of foraging for mushrooms but this has not always been so. As a child, living in the Vienna woods, I learnt to distinguish edible from inedible mushrooms. My guide was an old stick of a man called Poldi, who spent much of his day sipping beer at the train station kiosk. I’d pick all the mushrooms I could, carry them to Poldi and spread them out on the wooden table where he sat. He would patiently sort through them and teach me what to look for. In a short time, I was a competent mushroom forager. I had to be.
There was never much food on the table at our house and in late summer and throughout autumn, mushrooms became our staple diet. It was my job to find them. I would head into the woods with my trusted dog Rigó and keep my eyes to the ground. It was rare that I’d go home without a full basket; the consequences meant going hungry. Oddly, I don’t remember these times as drudgery or deprivation, no, I remember them fondly through the rose blush tint of nostalgia.
Ten years ago, I went back to those woods and looked out for mushrooms. I was trying to recapture my childhood but soon came to understand the futility of this venture. It was lovely walking through the woods and I even recognised some of the paths I used to take. The mushrooms, however, were foreign to me. I could no longer distinguish the edible from the poisonous. I even went to a farmer’s market to buy local mushrooms only to find them chewy and far too strong for my taste.
Strangely, I still love mushrooms. I now tend to stick to the ubiquitous supermarket variety which I could eat daily cooked in a variety of ways. You’d think I would be sick of them after my childhood years but they have stayed a comforting staple of my diet. Despite evidence to the contrary, I still look back to that time as my golden years. And perhaps, viewed through the eyes of a child, they really were.
