Catherine MaryMurnane

31 May 1937 – 19 February 2009

Catherine Murnane, 1978(photo: Gerald Murnane).

A special issue of Scratch PadNo 72, October 2009

based on material first published for the members of the Australia andNew Zealand Amateur Publishing Association (ANZAPA)

by Bruce Gillespie, 5 Howard Street, Greensborough VIC 3088,Australia

Phone (03) 9435 7786, email: gandc@pacific.net.au

Catherine Murnane:her funeral

Bruce Gillespie: Some time after the funeral of Catherine Murnane on 26 February 2009, I asked Gerald where his eulogy for his latewife would be published. He seemed surprised to think that some magazine might want to publish it. I pointed out that he had takena lot of trouble in writing it, had read it to Catherine before she died, and had rehearsed it carefully before the funeral. He valued it,and so did we, the people who gathered at the Cordell Chapel, Fawkner Park, on that day. His memories of Catherine included muchinformation that was new to me, somebody who had first met her in 1971. She has been a valued person in the lives of everybodywho knew her. She remains alive in Gerald’s speech, and the memories of other people who might want to reply to this issue of mylittle magazine *brg*.

Gerald undertook to conduct the funeral service. Here he welcomes those who attended:

Introductionby Gerald Murnane

I never thought of my wife, Catherine, as someone who enjoyed beingthe centre of attention, and yet she told me a few months ago that shehoped she would have a big funeral.

I thank you all for turning up today and making this the sort of funeralthat Catherine hoped for.

This won’t be overly long. Catherine and I each had a strong dislike for

empty speeches, for pious waffle, for tedious musical performances, andfor ceremonies that drag on and on with no seeming shape to them.

Catherine and I had plenty of time to plan this simple service. On 17 Maylast year, she was admitted to the Austin Hospital with pneumonia. Afew days later, we were told that Catherine had cancer in a lung and inseveral other places and that the best available treatment might onlyprolong her life by several months. A few weeks later again, and after

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more scans and tests, we were told that the cancer was so widespreadas to be untreatable.

Catherine took all this news with a calmness that astonished me. Shewas not known for being a calm or patient person. Often, in the past,she had fretted and complained when things had gone against her. Now,she was hearing her death-sentence with hardly any show of emotion.

As I’ve said, Catherine and I planned this service, which will consist offour speeches and a short prayer and will last for about an hour.

The music for this service was chosen by my son Martin Murnane.

This is not a conventional religious service. Catherine felt no animositytowards organised religion. During the first half of her life, the Catholicreligion was of much importance to her. Later, it became less relevant.

And yet, Catherine particularly wanted me to tell you that she believeduntil the end of her life that a part of her would survive the death anddecay of her body. I too believe that and with perhaps even moreconfidence than Catherine believed it. Catherine and I thought it self-evident that people are mostly invisible. The bodies of people are visiblebut not their essential parts: not the things called minds or personalitiesor souls. I think of that coffin as containing not Catherine Mary Murnane,born Lancaster, but what was merely the visible part of her for more thanseventy years and what I now call her earthly remains.

I invite you all to meet together after this service for refreshments at theFawkner Bowling Club, which is in Lorne Street, Fawkner, on the cornerof a little street named Creedon Street.

After this service, Catherine’s earthly remains will be cremated. In a weekor so from now, the ashes from the cremation will be buried in a plotthat she and I bought for ourselves a few years ago in the peacefulcemetery at Goroke, which is a township west of Mount Arapiles, southof the Little Desert, and not far short of the South Australian border. HowCatherine and I came to choose Goroke as our burial-place is too long astory to tell here, but I can tell you that Catherine and I were never afraidto talk about dying. When we had decided that our ashes should be buriedat Goroke, we looked around the cemetery there for our plot with the

same sort of eagerness that we had felt when we looked around thestreets of Rosanna and Macleod for our first home forty years before.What drew us to our burial-plot was a striking image on a fairly newheadstone near by. The image was of a racehorse at full gallop. Theheadstone, so we later learned, marked the grave of a man who hadgroomed a stable of racehorses owned by a farmer from near Goroke.Catherine and I chose for ourselves the plot next to the grave of the manwho had worked with racehorses and we were so pleased with our choicethat we took a number of photos of each other standing on our little bitof ground.

You may be wondering about the items resting on the coffin and waitingto be cremated with Catherine’s remains.

One item is a cookery book. Catherine loved cooking and had a largecollection of recipe-books.

Catherine loved to practise and to teach to others the Japanese art ofpaper-folding known as origami. On her coffin are two items of origami:one was given to her by her sister, Mary; the other was given to her bythe Fujimoto family, our relations by marriage.

Two framed pictures rest on the coffin. One is a painting of a farmhouseon a property named Cornervale near Yarram, in Gippsland. You’ll hearmore about Cornervale later. The other picture is a photograph ofCatherine and myself on our wedding day, 14 May 1966.

Also on the coffin are a fluffy woollen ball and a prayer-book. The fluffyball was made by our granddaughter Ella Murnane and given as a presentto Catherine in the early weeks of her last illness. The prayer-book is ofa bulky kind long since made obsolete by changes to the liturgy of theCatholic Church. It was known as a daily missal, and Catherine wouldhave carried it to and from church on many a morning during her teenageyears and her early twenties.

The last item on the coffin is a pair of ladies’ gloves made from fineleather. Until I found the gloves recently in Catherine’s wardrobe, I hadforgotten that a pair of gloves was once a necessary part of the outfit ofevery well-dressed lady. Catherine was always a well-dressed lady. I’min a position to state that Catherine spent, during her lifetime, a fortune

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on clothes and accessories. Apparently, she developed as a very youngwoman a taste for elegance. The gloves on her coffin are still in theiroriginal bag. The label on the bag reads George’s of Collins Street. Manyof you will remember Georges. It was the most exclusive, the mostsnobbish, the most up-market store in Melbourne. As a young man, I feltshabby and unworthy whenever I even walked past Georges’ windows.When I met Catherine, I was amazed to learn that this young primary-school teacher from a lower middle-class background not only shopped

in Georges but had an account there.

The booklets in front of you were designed, illustrated and printed by mygood friend Joseph Szabo, and I thank him for his skill and his kindness.Finally, I acknowledge the directors of Catherine’s funeral service, thesmall family-owned firm, Dubock Funerals. I thank Malcolm and StephenDubock and Kevin Oakman for their advice and their courtesy.

Gerald Murnane’s speechfor Catherine Murnane’s funeral service

It may seem an odd way to begin, but I want to say first about Catherinethat she was an Australian. Her kind of Australian is very rare nowadays.Each of her eight great- grandparents was in this country no later thanthe Gold Rushes of 150 years ago. Most of those eight were Irish,although he who gave her the name Lancaster was English.

Catherine read a huge amount as a child, but most of the books that sheread came from England and were about life in England. (This was howit was for all children in those years.) When she was twelve, and forreasons that don’t matter here, Catherine spent several weeks with afarming family who owned the collected works of Henry Lawson.Catherine soon discovered these books and began to read them.

I’m going to quote Catherine’s own words about her discovering HenryLawson. I’m able to quote her because she left behind a manuscript of30,000 words, being her autobiography until the age of twenty-five. Shebegan this manuscript when she learned that she was soon to becomea grandmother for the first time in 2002.

Here is Catherine recalling her first reading Henry Lawson.

I used to sit on a cushion on the front veranda with a plate of the most

delicious raisin bread beside me while I read for hours ... I rememberfeeling a profound joy at being an Australian and living in Australia. Inthe 1940s, when I was reading his stories for the first time, Lawson’sworld was not at all remote from me in time. I would look up from thebook and rejoice in the sight of a stand of gum-trees or a view ofdistant blue hills.

Catherine’s forebears on her mother’s side were mostly working-classfolk from Ballarat. Her forebears on her father’s side were mostlyGippslanders. Through her father’s mother, Catherine was descendedfrom the Collins family, who were among the very first settlers inGippsland; they came overland from New South Wales when Melbournewas only a few years old. Catherine’s father’s parents lived out their liveson a farm that had been part of an original selection made by some ofthe first Gippslanders. The name of this farm was Cornervale, and it washugely important to Catherine during her childhood. I’ll mention Corner-vale again shortly.

Catherine was an eldest child. She was born on 31 May 1937 in Albury,NSW, while her parents were living in Wodonga, Victoria. Albury–Wodonga had little significance for Catherine. Her parents lived there in1937 only because her father happened to be working there as a

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herd-tester for the Victorian Department of Agriculture. While Catherinewas still an infant, her father took up a position as dairy inspector, basedat Korumburra in South Gippsland. He and his family remained thereuntil the early 1950s, when he was appointed a stock inspector at Saleand moved there with his family. So, the setting for Catherine’s childhoodwas Korumburra — but not just Korumburra. I mentioned a minute agothe property called Cornervale, owned by Catherine’s father’s parents.Cornervale was near Woodside, which is near Yarram, which is in deepestGippsland. Catherine lived throughout her childhood at Korumburra butspent many school holidays at Cornervale.

Here is Catherine writing in later life about Korumburra.

Korumburra was a small town among the folding hills of the StrezleckieRanges. My first memories are of peaceful, green hills. The hills werealways green, but the weather was often rainy or bleak. I was animaginative and talkative child. I invented for myself friends andcompanions who lived among the hills or on top of the hills. I used tostare at the distant hills and hold long conversations with my imaginaryfriends who lived there.

Here is Catherine writing about Cornervale.

I spent blissful holidays with Grandma and Pop and Grandma’s sisterMary Ellen. I was the oldest grandchild, and they delighted in mycompany. They talked to me as though I was an adult. They gave mepleasant tasks to do: bringing in chips of wood for the fire; filling thechooks’ bowls with water; gathering beans from the vegie garden.

I helped Grandma with the cooking and learned a lot from her. Eachevening, I went to the milking shed and sat on a rail to watch Pop milkhis few dairy-cows. I used to stare out across the paddocks towardsthe Bruthen Creek and then swivel around and stare at the wool-shed.

One evening, when I was eight or nine, I was staring at some tallgum-trees behind the creek when I saw a thick circle of light abovethe trees. The light wavered but was very bright. A great feeling ofpeace came over me. Everything in the world seemed peaceful andgood. As well, I felt drawn towards the circle of light. So strange wasthis experience that I stood in the same spot on the following eveningand looked at the same trees. Again, I saw the circle of light. I sawthe light yet again on the third night. On the fourth night — nothing.

That experience never returned. I told no one about it. I kept it as asecret treasure all my life. I was strongly religious as a child, and Iwondered whether an angel had arranged the experience for me toprove that God existed.

You heard a little while ago that Catherine learned cooking from hergrandmother. She learned a good deal also from her mother, whomentioned one day to one of the nuns at St Joseph’s, Korumburra, thatCatherine was a capable cook. The result of this was that Catherine, agirl of only nine or ten years, would spend many a Saturday afternoonin the kitchen of the convent, cooking excellent scones and biscuits andsponge-cakes for the nuns, some of whom, so Catherine once told me,were even less competent as cooks than they were as teachers.

For most of her married life, until her left leg failed and she could nolonger keep her balance at the stove or the sink, Catherine loved to cookand to try new recipes on guests. She served up many a sumptuous mealat the dinner parties that she arranged in our house, especially in the1970s, which were Catherine’s golden years as a chef and hostess. A fewmonths before Catherine died, our friend Bruce Gillespie wrote to thankher for many things, but especially for a Yorkshire pudding that she hadcooked for him on a memorable evening more than thirty years before.Catherine told me that she remembered the evening and the Yorkshirepudding. She had an amazing memory for anything to do with hercooking. If I asked her could she recall such and such an evening manyyears before when so and so had dined at our house, Catherine couldusually tell me every dish that she had served on that evening and everyfavourable comment that the guests had made about the food.

Catherine loved horses.

In my courting days, so to call them, whenever I asked a young womanout for the first time, I would ask her to the Saturday races. I assumedthat the young woman would know little or nothing about horses orbetting or such things. I looked forward to playing the role of expert whilemy female companion listened in amazement to my kindly lectures onthe complex and mysterious subject of the Turf.

On Saturday 20 June 1964, when the sky was clear but a cold wind blewfrom the south-west, I went on my first outing with Catherine Lancaster.

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In those days, I chose not to own a car, and so I travelled with her bytaxi to Caulfield Racecourse from the up-market flat that she shared withthree other young women in Power Street, Hawthorn. The day turnedout not quite as I had planned. Before I could deliver the first of myinformative lectures, Catherine asked me had I done much riding. I, thewould-be expert on all things equine, was then put in the humiliatingposition of having to admit that I had never sat astride a horse. Catherinethen told me some of the story that I heard with pleasure from her manytimes in later years.

In the year when she turned twelve, Catherine was offered the use of awhite pony named Snowy. Unfortunately, Snowy lived on a farm morethan a mile from Catherine’s home in Korumburra. Plus, Catherine hadno suitable riding clothes. Never mind. She persuaded her mother to buyher a pair of boy’s overalls. Then, on many an afternoon, she would hurryhome from St Joseph’s School, pull on her overalls, and then set outrunning along Shellcotts’ Road towards the farm of Kevin and MaryGleeson, where Snowy was stabled. Catherine would run until she wasout of breath, then walk a little way, and then run again. She rode Snowybareback around Gleesons’ farm or around the near-by roads until it wastime to run and walk home again for tea.

At Caulfield races on that day in 1964, when I was preparing to deliverto Catherine a short lecture on the role of the bookmaker in racing, sheasked me how old I had been when I had my first bet. I told her truthfullythat my first bet had been five shillings on a horse called Trash at Koroitracecourse in January 1955, a month before my sixteenth birthday.Catherine then told me that when she was ten years old, her great-auntMary Ellen, who lived with the family at that time, would call Catherineto her room of a Friday afternoon. Mary Ellen would have the racing formfor Saturday spread out in front of her with her selections marked. Inthose days, Catherine got 1/6d pocket money from her parents eachweek — the equivalent in today’s money of about $7. Encouraged by hergreat-aunt, ten-years-old Catherine would pick a horse for herself andthen set aside a third of her pocket-money to back the horse. Great-auntand Catherine would write down their bets and then put bets and moneyin a sealed envelope. Catherine would then walk down the main streetof Korumburra, trying not to look like someone breaking the law, andwould hand the envelope to the respectable tailor and draper who wasalso the town’s illegal bookmaker.

Although our day at Caulfield races didn’t go quite as I had planned it,we seemed to enjoy one another’s company. There were no awkwardsilences, which is another way of saying that neither of us shut up allafternoon.

After I had taken Catherine home from the races in a taxi, I expectedshe would have better things to do with her Saturday evening than tospend any part of it with me. However, she invited me inside to meether flatmate Maureen O’Connell. After that, three things happened whichpointed clearly towards our future, if we had only known. First, Catherinecooked me something tasty. Then, she and I sat in front of the gas-fireand talked non-stop, with Maureen trying to get an occasional word in.Third, during the evening Catherine smoked the best part of a packet ofcigarettes of the brand called Peter Stuyvesant. According to the wordsof the well-known radio and TV ads of those days, those cigarettes wereCatherine’s passport to international smoking pleasure.

I’ve mentioned Catherine’s love of reading. She read more as a child andyoung woman than anyone I’ve known. My favourite story about her loveof reading comes from her two years at boarding school. After Catherinehad finished her eight years of primary schooling at St Joseph’s, Korum-burra, the nuns persuaded her parents that Catherine deserved to go tosecondary school. Only a minority of children received a secondaryeducation in those days, and none was available for Catherine inKorumburra. However, the same order of nuns who taught at St Joseph’sran a small, inexpensive boarding-school for girls at Coragulac, a bleakdistrict north of Colac, with hardly a tree for miles around and little tolook at except paddocks planted with onions. So, Catherine spent herfourteenth and fifteenth years in a Spartan boarding-school where shehardly ever had enough to eat and suffered often from homesickness.Two things helped her to endure Coragulac. First, the nuns there weremostly good teachers; and second, Catherine had a lot of time forreading. She even read during play periods and sports periods. The girlsat Coragulac played a lot of cricket. Catherine was a good swimmer andrunner but no good at ball-games. While she was waiting her turn to batat cricket, she read her latest book. If the book was really interesting,she batted recklessly so that she would get herself out and be able to goback to her reading. When her side was fielding, she insisted on takingher book with her into the field. Her captain, knowing this, used to stationCatherine at long leg or deep third man. There she would stand, with her

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book in her hands, heedless of what was going on at the wicket.Occasionally, she would hear teammates screaming her name. At suchtimes, she would place her book face-down on the grass and then lookaround for the ball that she was supposed to catch or to chase after.

I don’t know when it was, but at some time during her schooldaysCatherine first heard about a mysterious, far-away place called theUniversity of Melbourne where people not only read books but talked forhours about books and walked around with piles of books under theirarms. I don’t know when it happened, but Catherine decided, while stillin her early teens, that the university would be her Holy Grail; that oneday, by hook or by crook, she would get to be a student at the university.

Anyone born since the Second World War would have trouble under-standing how remote and inaccessible was the University of Melbournefor the daughter of a humble dairy inspector from Korumburra. WhenCatherine first dreamed of going there, the University of Melbourne wasthe only university in Victoria. The small numbers of students there weremostly from wealthy families and had been to private schools. Not onlythat, but Catherine, being a girl, was expected by her parents and bysociety to work for a year or two after she had left school and then tobecome engaged to be married to someone who would be her providerfor the rest of her life.

Fate put many obstacles in Catherine’s path during the dozen and moreyears while she first dreamed about going to university and later actuallystudied for her arts degree. One obstacle was her family circumstances.Catherine had six younger siblings. There was little money to spare forschool-fees for secondary education. After Catherine had passed herLeaving Certificate exams (equivalent to Year Eleven today), her fatherurged her to apply for a position in the office at Leslie’s, the largedepartment store in Sale, where Catherine’s family now lived. Catherineapplied and was successful. So, there was sixteen-years-old Catherine,in the hot days of January, 1954, having passed her Leaving Certificate,earning in today’s money more than $300 per week with the prospect ofpromotion. Not only that, but a position at Leslie’s had a certain glamourabout it. A girl in Catherine’s position might be expected in due courseto attract the notice of the son of some leading business family in Saleor even of some farming family from the district around. That would havebeen how Catherine’s well-meaning parents saw her situation. Catherine

herself wanted her position at Leslie’s to be no more than a holiday job.All she wanted was to be able to go back to school for her last year ofsecondary education: to move one step closer to university.

Fate was on her side for the time being. Late in January, while Catherinewas still at Leslie’s, the principal of Our Lady of Sion Convent, in Sale,where Catherine had passed her Leaving Certificate, sent for Catherine’sparents. The principal was so eager to have Catherine back at school thatshe, the principal, would accept Catherine without asking for any fees.This was good news indeed for Catherine, but the bad news came notlong afterwards. Catherine learned during her first weeks back at schoolthat her teachers were incompetent. They were kind and well-meaningbut utterly incompetent.

In her autobiography, Catherine wrote much about the feeble efforts ofher would-be teachers in her matriculation year. There were two teachersand only three students. All three students worked to the best of theirability, with only their textbooks to help them. The results speak forthemselves. Margaret Russell failed every subject. Aldona Markonis failedevery subject. Catherine Lancaster passed four subjects and becameeligible to sign the matriculation roll at the University of Melbourne.

However, two years were to pass before Catherine set foot in theuniversity. During her last year of school, by her own account, shebecame confused and doubtful about her future. She decided that shecould not afford to go to university full-time. She seems not to have beeninformed by her teachers about the various studentships and scholar-ships available. Or, perhaps she anticipated that her results would notbe good enough to qualify her for any of these. Catherine settled herconfusion for the time being by deciding to become a nun. She appliedto join the Good Samaritan Sisters, the same order that had taught herat Korumburra and Coragulac. Catherine wrote in her autobiography thatone of her chief reasons for wanting to join this order was that they wereknown to send their brightest young members to university.

Catherine had to wait a year before she could enter the training houseof the Good Samaritan nuns. The reason was her lack of money. Shewas required to pay a large sum in advance for her upkeep and educationduring the first year of her training. In many another family, the parentswould have paid this money for their daughter; Catherine would probably

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not have asked her parents to pay, even if they had had the money.Being Catherine, she took a full-time job for a year in the pathologylaboratory at Sale Hospital. Much of her work was the preparing of slidesof blood samples to be examined under the microscope by the patholo-gist. I gather from what she wrote that she was a competent and valuedworker, even though she took the job only to get the money needed forher entry to the Good Samaritans.

Catherine stayed for less than a year at the training-house of the GoodSamaritan Sisters in the Sydney suburb of Pennant Hills. She wrote longafterwards that her life as a postulant of the order was hardly differentfrom her life as a schoolgirl in boarding-school. She found little tochallenge or stimulate her in the convent routine. Most of all, she missedthe sort of books that she had loved to read since her childhood.

Catherine now (1957) resolved to move to Melbourne to work full-time,and to study part-time at university. She got board and lodging from akindly aunt in Bentleigh. She joined the Commonwealth Bank and workedin one of their city offices—not as a teller but in some sort of back-room,book-keeping position. Finally, when all these matters had been settled,she enrolled in English One and British History at the University ofMelbourne.

She needed to pass ten subjects to obtain her Arts degree. She plannedto pass two each year for five years. She did not know how gruelling isthe life of a part-time student. When I met up with her in 1964, sevenyears later, she had passed only five of her ten subjects. Not that shefailed often. There had been several years when she was unable to study.In 1959, she did a one-year course for a trained primary teacher’scertificate. For several years in the early 1960s, she was teaching incountry Victoria, far from the university. But she never gave up.

The year when Catherine most amazed me was 1966. Early in that year,she enrolled in three third-year subjects in order to finish her course atlast. Admittedly, the Education Department gave her two days off eachweek for study, but three third-year subjects was a full load for a full-timestudent. Moreover, Catherine and I were to be married in May. Catherine

Catherine Murnane, graduation 1967(photo: Gerald Murnane).

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wanted a formal wedding with all the trimmings. We planned every detailof our wedding with hardly any help from parents or anyone else. (Wealso paid for the wedding ourselves.) During the first university term wealso had to find and lease and furnish a flat for ourselves. Catherinehelped with all these things while she tried to keep up with her threesubjects. Not long before our wedding, one of Catherine’s brothers wasfound to have leukaemia. During the second term of university, Catherinevisited her brother in hospital, and later had to cope with his death andfuneral. After all this, I would not have been surprised if Catherine hadwithdrawn from her subjects for that year but no, against all odds shefinished all her essays, passed all her exams, and on a sunny Saturdayafternoon in the following April, while the organ thundered the lastmovement of Handel’s Royal Fireworks Suite, Catherine walked inacademic procession out of Wilson Hall at the University of Melbourne,gowned and hooded as a Bachelor of Arts.

I should add that ten years later, after another arduous part- time course,Catherine graduated Bachelor of Education from Melbourne.

It’s surely time for a bit of humour. Catherine didn’t lack a sense ofhumour but she seldom allowed me to tell this story about her. Shethought it made her seem too simple and unsophisticated as a youngwoman.

When Catherine was a humble book-keeper at the Commonwealth Bankand an even humbler evening student at university, she was sitting onenight in an English tutorial conducted by the well-known poet andacademic Chris Wallace-Crabbe. The subject of the tutorial was thepoetry of John Keats. In order to appreciate this story, all you need toknow about Keats is that he died at twenty-six from tuberculosis andthat he spent his last years courting a young woman named FannyBrawne. During the tutorial Chris Wallace-Crabbe asked the studentssome or another question: why had Keats done this, or why had he notdone that? The students remained silent. The evening students oftenremained silent. They were mostly strangers to one another and wary ofsaying the wrong thing. They were mostly tired after having worked allday. Some of them had missed their evening meal while they travelledin from distant suburbs. Finally, this particular silence was broken by ademure young red-haired woman. The students were always addressedformally in those days, and this young woman was known to the class

as Miss Lancaster. ‘Perhaps,’ said Miss Lancaster, ‘perhaps the troublewith Keats was that he was too much preoccupied with his fanny.’

‘They all laughed and fell about,’ Catherine said when she first told methis story. ‘And I didn’t learn until long afterwards what I’d said that wasso funny.’

Catherine was always grateful to Chris Wallace-Crabbe for the way heconducted himself after the tutorial had broken up in helpless mirth. It

Catherine and the twins, Martin (l.) and Gavin (r.)(photo: Gerald Murnane).

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must have cost him a supreme effort of will-power, but he soon recoveredhis composure and tried to behave as though the demure young redheadhad actually contributed something of value to the discussion instead ofwrecking it.

Many years later, when Catherine and I had come a long way from beinghumble part-time undergraduates, and when the guests at our dinner-parties included writers and publishers and academics, Chris Wallace-Crabbe himself sat one evening at our table. But even then, Catherinefelt too embarrassed to let me bring up the subject of John Keats andhis unhealthy preoccupations.

I still have to mention the most serious obstacle that Catherine had toovercome in her struggle to be the sort of person she aspired to be. It’shard to believe nowadays how much pressure was put on young womenin the 1950s and for most of the 1960s. I’m talking about the pressureto become engaged and to marry. It was almost universally assumedthat a girl would marry in her early twenties and would find fulfilmentever afterwards as a wife and mother. Catherine wrote in her auto-biography that she felt uneasy when she turned first twenty-one andthen twenty-two and then twenty-three and was still unattached, andwhen she noticed in trams and trains girl after girl of her own age andyounger, each with a diamond engagement ring flashing on her left hand.Each girl would hold her left hand in such a way that people would noticeher ring; would know that she had got her man.

Now, Catherine’s situation during the early 1960s was somewhat com-plicated. True, she sported no diamond on her left hand; she was farfrom having got her man. And true enough, as she wrote in herautobiography, she sometimes felt she was on her way to being an oldmaid, which is what single women over the age of thirty were called inthose days. But Catherine need not have been in this situation. IfCatherine had been a coward and afraid of the world’s opinion of her; ifCatherine had been prepared to give up her dream of graduating fromuniversity and of living among people who thought books were important— if Catherine had wanted to, she could have worn a diamond on herleft hand when she was only twenty-one. She could have walked downthe aisle — to use that quaint expression — at the age of twenty-two.

Catherine Lancaster was no wallflower. She told me many years ago,

and she made it clear in her autobiography, that she turned down threeopportunities to marry between her twenty-first and her twenty-fifthyears. The three young men who might have married her were allCatholics and courted her honourably. Only one of the three actuallyproposed marriage, but she was in no doubt that the others were on theirway to proposing when she broke off with them. One of the three wasan officer in the RAAF. The other two were public servants with careerpaths ahead of them. Catherine was concerned that she had caused muchhurt to the latest of her three suitors, and according to her autobiographyshe resolved in 1962, at the age of twenty-five, not to become attachedagain to any boy-friend but to concentrate on her studies and her career.Nowadays, this sort of decision would seem hardly worth remarking on.In 1962, when most young women of Catherine’s age had one or eventwo rings on their fingers, hers was a brave decision.

Ten years ago, I made a speech at my mother’s funeral. I was verypleased afterwards when one of my mother’s sisters said to me, ‘Thankgoodness you didn’t make your mother out to be a living saint.’

My mother was no living saint, and neither was my wife. Even before wewere married, I learned that Catherine had hardly any understanding ofthe value of money. If credit cards had been widely available in the 1960s,Catherine and I might never have saved the deposit on our house inMacleod. We might have spent the forty-three years of our married livesin our one-bedroom flat in Park Street, Brunswick, creeping through thetunnels between the stacks of antique furniture and the wardrobes filledwith expensive clothes for women. We could never have had childrenbecause we would have had no place to put them.

To her credit, Catherine recognised this failing in herself and allowed me,in the first year of our marriage, to take complete control of our householdfinances. After that, whenever Catherine would ask me how much moneywe had in this or that bank account, I would quote a sum that was abouthalf the true amount.

There’s a popular belief that red-haired people are short-tempered, easilyprovoked to anger. Let me tell you: it’s more than a popular belief; it’sa proven fact, and Catherine was living proof of it.

I felt the full force of Catherine’s rage not a few times. As years passed,

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I learned to see the warning signs beforehand and to take evasive action.

The persons who most often provoked Catherine to anger were shop-assistants and receptionists and, sometimes, her own colleagues at work.In fairness to Catherine, I should say that she mostly had a good reasonfor her anger. She could not tolerate slackness or incompetence orrudeness from persons paid to do a job or to give service.

Sometimes, Catherine could strike fear into a person without even raisingher voice. In the 1980s, when we shopped at Harry Heath’s Supermarketin Heidelberg, Catherine one day delivered a quiet but severe rebuke toa check-out person, not a girl but a woman older than Catherine herself.Every week after that, when Catherine and I approached the check-outarea with our loaded trolley, this woman would have been watching outfor us. She would reach for the sign that read CLOSED and would put

Catherine’s primary school class, Yallambie Primary School, 1979.

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the sign on her checkout counter to protect herself from Catherine.

It seems to happen more and more nowadays that some or anothersports star or politician or celebrity tells the world about his or herstruggle with mental illness. Terms such as ‘clinical depression’ or‘bi-polar disorder’, which were once used only by medical professionals,are nowadays used by journalists and people-in-the-street. Twenty-fiveyears ago, this was not so. Twenty-five years ago, a person sufferingfrom a mental illness was more likely to suffer in silence rather than riskbeing misunderstood or made to feel an outcast.

For some years during the 1980s, Catherine suffered from a mentalillness. Few people outside our immediate family were aware of this.Rightly or wrongly, Catherine and I and our three sons kept our troublesmostly to ourselves. We tried to keep up the pretence that nothing waswrong in our house. For much of the time, Catherine even dragged herselfto work. They were tough years for all five of us. At times, our familycame close to breaking up, but we managed to stay together, and at lastCatherine began to recover, although she had to take early retirementfrom her career with the Ministry of Education.

The years that followed, the 1990s, were perhaps Catherine’s and mymost contented years. Our sons became independent of us. She and Iwere able to go to the races together every Saturday. Sometimes,Catherine even cooked and entertained again. But trouble struck againearly in the new century when Catherine’s left leg grew weak. She walkedwith a stick for a few years until the leg gave way completely and shecould not even stand without a wheeled frame in front of her. The lastof the many blows to fall on her fell in May 2008 when she was found tohave cancer in several parts of her body.

A writer I admire, the Austrian Robert Musil, claimed that the majorevents in our lives render us incapable of uttering anything but common-place sentiments. According to Musil, I would come up with nothing butbanalities if I were to try now to say finally what sort of person Catherinewas and how we ought to remember her.

It seems to me that Robert Musil was right. It seems to me that the mostprofound words come to a person not on occasions such as today but atquiet, uneventful times when the person is able to ponder and to reflect.And so, I’m going to end this speech not with any high-flown words fromme but with some words that Catherine herself wrote one afternoon inSeptember 2005, when she was adding the latest page to her auto-biography.

Those of you who know our house in Macleod can picture Catherinewriting at the table in the small area that we call the dining-room. Sincethe month was September, you can picture the neighbours’ cherry-plumtrees thick with leaves outside the window. Catherine is in her late sixtiesand lame in one leg. She is trying to record for her grandchildren thedetails that matter from her long and often difficult life. On this quietafternoon, it occurs to Catherine to report something from nearly sixtyyears before.

I now end this account of Catherine’s life by reading the words that shewrote on that afternoon a few years ago. These few words will tell youmore clearly than I could ever tell you what sort of person was my wifeand friend for more than forty-four years.

Before I stop writing about St Joseph’s Primary School, Korumburra,I must mention Carmel Kroger, a girl I have never forgotten. I oftenwonder how her life turned out. She was unkempt and dirty andcompletely isolated. The other girls showed no mercy towards her.Nearly every day, they played a game at her expense. One girl wouldtouch Carmel with a fingertip. Then, in a chain of distaste, the first girlwould touch a second girl, and so on; the girls would touch one anotheras though to pass Carmel’s germs from one girl to another. WheneverI was touched, I stood stock still, smiled, and refused to complete thechain. I often wonder whether my refusing to take part in that socialcruelty ever affected poor Carmel Kroger. She was younger than I,and I often wonder why couldn’t have done more for her — not justrefused to persecute her but played with her sometimes.

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Gerald Murnane speaking about The Lord’s Prayer

Now comes the final item in this service. The Lord’s Prayer needs nointroduction. Please stand and join me:

[GM leads in reciting Lord’s Prayer]

And why, you may ask, the Hungarian version as well as the English?Catherine had little interest in foreign languages but she often told methat she enjoyed the sound of the Hungarian poems and songs that Irecited and sang around the house during the years when I was drivento learn Hungarian.

And why was I driven to learn Hungarian? I once wrote, and hadpublished, a long essay meant to answer that very question. Near theend of the essay was a sentence that my publisher wanted me to changebecause it seemed to him somewhat foolish, which only goes to showthat one person’s faith is another person’s folly. What I wrote, out of follyor out of faith, was that I believe the angels in heaven speak Hungarian.

[Mi atyánk, aki a mennyekben vagy, ...]

The last year of Catherine’s lifeLetters from Gerald to his friends

30 May 2008

Catherine was admitted to the Austin Hospital two weeks ago withpneumonia. While she was in the hospital, tests showed that she hascancer in a lung and in several other parts of her body.

She was discharged from hospital today. She has been offered notreatment, and the senior doctor who authorised her discharge has

offered her little hope of recovery. Catherine is now an outpatient of theAustin with her first appointment due three weeks from now.

Catherine has taken this news in complete calm, unlike many of her closefamily. She is pleased to be home again and is feeling well at present.

Do not be wary of phoning us or of writing to us during the comingmonths. The best time to phone would be between 4.30 and 6.30 in the

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afternoon, when I’m most likely to be home.Your sincerelyGeraldfor Catherine and Gerald

PS: When you, Bruce, walked into that funny windowless room atPublications Branch and introduced yourself thirty or forty years ago in1971, Catherine was a strapping young woman expecting twins. Today,the twins are nearly forty and Catherine is nearly dead. Where did theyears go? Az évek, hová repültek?

Friday, 2 August 2008

Since I last wrote, Catherine has spent two periods in hospital. On eachoccasion, she was admitted by way of the emergency department withpainful but not life-threatening symptoms. The symptoms have nowbeen-controlled, and Catherine returned home on-last Wednesday. Asfrom next week palliative care nurses will be available to her.

Her stays in hospital were trials for Catherine. Being unable to walkunassisted and having problems with her bladder, she needed much helpfrom the nurses. I was with her every day and able to be her unpaidnurse, but she complained that she was sometimes neglected or evenrebuked by the night nurses.

Catherine is very pleased to be home again. She rests a good deal andis free of pain for much of the time, thanks to her many medicines. Sheis visited often by her sons and their families but would prefer not tohave any other visitors.

I do not mind being phoned between about 6.00 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. onweekdays, but I may not be able to answer your call if I’m attending toCatherine at the time.Yours sincerelyGerald

PS: Thanks for telling Robyn Whiteley. I’ve added her to my mailing list.G.

Monday 15 September 2008

When I sent my previous report, in late July, I was expecting to be ableto nurse Catherine at home for perhaps two months. In fact, she had togo back to hospital on 9 August and has been there since. She went tothe Palliative Care Unit of Austin Health in a state of near-delirium. Formuch of the next fortnight, she moved restlessly on her bed or called outfor help. Several times, she went without sleep for thirty-six hours. Thehospital had to employ nurses from outside agencies to be with Catherinearound the clock. I believed her cancer was affecting her brain and thatshe might be close to death. Several doctors and nurses tentativelyagreed with me.

The consensus nowadays is that Catherine was reacting badly to thecocktail of drugs that successive doctors had prescribed for her duringher several previous stays in hospital — especially to certain pain-killersderived from morphine.

After Catherine had spent a fortnight in the Palliative Care Unit, themanager had her transferred to a locked ward for sufferers fromdementia and such ailments. There she regained most of her composureafter several of her medicines had been changed. While she was in thelocked ward, she began to feel homesick. With her doctor’s approval, Ihired a wheelchair from our local chemist and took Catherine home forseveral hours each Sunday.

Today, Catherine returned to the Palliative Care Unit. However, theManager has told Catherine that she is too well now to remain perma-nently in the unit. (The manager said ‘too well’ but she meant ‘not sickenough’, of course.) The manager intends, I think, to have Catherinespend more time at home: first a half-day; later a whole day; later,perhaps, several days. I will only agree to this if I can be assured thatthe Banksia Palliative Care people will be available to help me at shortnotice. (These are the people who had only just begun to supportCatherine and me when she had to go back to hospital.) Catherine nowhas a catheter in her bladder at all times. About three times weekly shehas an attack of severe pain that requires an injection of pain-killer overand above her regular intake. Plus, there is some chance that her lungscould begin to fail. (A recent scan revealed that her cancer had spreadless than might have been expected throughout her system but morethan might have been expected in her lungs.)

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Catherine still eats three small meals daily and sleeps soundly. On a goodday, she seems likely to live for months to come. On her bad days, herfuture seems gloomy. She has been much cheered several times latelyto see and to handle her first grandson, Perry Joe Murnane, who wasborn on 29 August and is thriving.Yours sincerelyGerald Murnane

Melbourne Cup Day, 2008

Lately I’ve received several letters from people who seemed to believethat I had written to them personally with the latest news aboutCatherine. Please be aware that this is a circular letter. I’m sending acopy not only to you but to nearly sixty other persons in Australia andoverseas. If you want to write back to me, I’ll be grateful, but I can’twrite to you personally.

When I last wrote, Catherine had returned to the Palliative Care Unit ofthe Austin Hospital after her stay in the unit for the demented. Sheremained in the PCU for three weeks in a fairly stable condition. Duringthat time, I took her home in a wheelchair for several afternoon visitsand, later, for overnight visits. Finally, on 7 October, she was dischargedinto my care and the care of the Banksia Palliative Care organisation.

For nearly three weeks, things went rather well. Catherine was pleasedto be home again, and I was free from having to spend seven hours ofeach day in hospital. We had problems, however. Catherine could neversleep for more than eighty or ninety minutes without waking in anagitated state. For three weeks, neither of us got more than ninetyminutes of sleep at a time. On an average night, she would wake meseven or eight times for a cup of tea or a cigarette or a session on hercommode chair. This was tiring but bearable. Unfortunately, the doctorand the nurses from Banksia Palliative Care could not fine-tuneCatherine’s pain-killers and sedatives. Her periods of sleep becameshorter and her periods of agitation longer. On Wednesday 28 October,she stayed awake for most of the night in a delirious state. I had to situp with her for her safety. Early next morning, I sent her by ambulanceto the Emergency Department of the Austin, where she was sedated.She was soon transferred to the PCU, but the cocktail of drugs that shehad lately taken sent her into a coma for thirty-six hours.

Catherine’s forbears on both sides include a number of substance-abusers who lived into their eighties and nineties. I was not surprisedwhen she came out of her coma and went back to her routine of sleepingfor seventy minutes or so and then thrashing about and calling out forseveral hours. (By now, she was back in the Palliative Care Unit, in thevery same bed where she had thrashed and writhed for nearly a fortnightin early August.)

Television is free to every patient in the PCU, and so Catherine and Iwere able to watch the Derby on the Saturday and the Cup today. I doubt,however, whether she will have any recollection of either race.

Oaks Day, 2008

Catherine is now back in the Special Unit where the demented hang out.She was there for a fortnight and more in late August and earlySeptember. We are on a crazy merry-go-round. This time, we don’t feelso unhappy to be among the zombies — we’ve been assured thatCatherine will go back to the PCU as soon as she has calmed down. Thiscould happen in as little time as a week from now. She is already muchcalmer than she was on Cup Day. The trouble is: in order to calm her,the doctors have to restrict her access to pain- killers. As soon asCatherine takes most conventional pain- killers, she leaves the planet.This is her greatest problem at present.Sincerely, Gerald

Thursday 11 December 2008

I’m going to boast a little in this report.

When I ended my previous report, Catherine was in the locked wardamong the dementia-sufferers but soon to be sent home again afterhaving recovered from her latest drug-induced delirium.

Two specialists had agreed that Catherine was not to be given in futureany drugs of the morphine family, not even fentanyl, a syntheticmorphine that had saved her from much pain in the past. I was alarmedto learn that the only painkillers Catherine would take home from hospitalwere paracetamol and ibuprofen. I could not believe that these alonewould control her persistent pain.

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When the hospital pharmacist learned that I had at home an unusedstock of fentanyl lozenges, she told me to bring them all to her so thatCatherine would not be ‘tempted’ to use fentanyl again.

I’ve never openly disputed any decision made by a person with a rankor qualifications superior to mine. I’ve always preferred to save myenergy for finding ways to disobey the person or to outwit him or her.

I handed over to the hospital pharmacist only a third of my stock offentanyl, leaving her to suppose that I had none left at home. Then Ilooked into what I call my nursing records.

On every day that Catherine has spent at home since her illness wasdiagnosed in May, I’ve recorded the sorts of things that nurses recordabout patients in hospital, especially the medicines that she took andtheir seeming effects on her. I could find no evidence in my records thatfentanyl alone, taken by mouth, had made Catherine delirious. Fentanylpatches on her skin, and fentanyl taken together with other drugs hadcaused trouble, but after having studied my nursing records, I feltjustified in dosing Catherine at home with fentanyl taken orally, eventhough two specialists had banned her from taking it.

I brought Catherine home on Monday 17 November. The BanksiaPalliative Care nurses began their twice-weekly visits again, but I did nottell them that I was relieving Catherine’s pain with a banned medicine.After a week, the Banksia general practitioner visited Catherine. I toldhim about my giving fentanyl to Catherine against the instructions of thehospital specialists. He commended me and wrote a prescription for anon-going supply of fentanyl.

Of course, I don’t claim to know more than the medical specialists knowabout the effects of fentanyl and other drugs. However, I do claim toknow more than any specialist knows about my wife. The specialistsvisited Catherine for a few minutes in hospital, made their lofty pro-nouncements, and then passed on. What would they know about the taskof caring around the clock for a terminally ill woman whose left legbecame useless three years ago and who can’t even get from her bed toher commode chair without help?

I’ve cared for Catherine around the clock these past twenty-five days,

not to mention many earlier weeks when she was at home. Catherinecontinues to be a difficult patient. She never, repeat never sleeps formore than an hour at any one time. Mostly she sleeps for about fortyminutes and then calls out for a drink or a cigarette or a pain-killingmedicine or a spell on the commode-chair. Some of you folk out theremay find it hard to believe, but I assure you that neither Catherine norI has had more than an hour of unbroken sleep for the past twenty-five-days and nights. I’m surprised at how well I’ve got used to the situationby now. Even after a nap of only twenty or thirty minutes, I become wideawake as soon as I hear Catherine call out.

I get a little help, of course. A nurse comes twice each week to washCatherine and to change or check her catheter and its attachments. Ourcase-manager from Banksia Palliative Care visits every week or so withhelpful suggestions. The general practitioner assigned to us lurks in thebackground. The real work, however, falls to me, and I’ve coped so far.Since I last brought Catherine home on 17 November, I’ve left the houseonly once each day for thirty minutes of essential shopping while one oranother of our sons keeps watch over his mother.

Banksia Palliative Care offers the services of volunteers — people of acharitable inclination, presumably, who are prepared to stay with theterminally ill for up to three hours while the carer gets respite. I’ve madeno use whatever of the volunteers and I intend to go on doing withoutthem. What use would three hours of so-called respite be to me? WouldI use the time for driving to the local park and trying to sleep in my car?

Sunday 21 Dec 08

I’ll try to post this tomorrow so that it reaches Australian addresseesbefore Xmas. Nothing much has changed. Today is the thirty-fifth daysince I last brought Catherine home from hospital. She still can’t sleepfor more than am hour at a time. Lately, I’ve begun to think herwakefulness might be caused by difficulties in breathing. Even when she’ssleeping, her shoulders heave with each breath. Eventually, she mayneed oxygen, but if that time comes, I’ll take her back to the PalliativeCare Unit at Austin Health. I’m not prepared to fiddle with machinery ontop of all the other tasks that I have to do for Catherine.

Some of you kind folk out there have offered recently to visit Catherine

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or to take me for coffee or even to lunch. You mean well, but you don’tseem to understand the situation here. Catherine has lost all interest inthe world outside her room, and I couldn’t think of leaving her for morethan thirty minutes at most. We are both going through a hard time, butit won’t last for too much longer.Yours sincerelyGerald Murnane

14 January 2009

I kept Catherine at home for fifty-two days and nights, from mid-November until early January.

Sometimes nowadays, I can hardly believe that neither Catherine nor Igot more than an hour of continuous sleep during all that time, but I keptdetailed records to remind myself afterwards that it truly happened.

I decided to have Catherine taken back to the Palliative Care Unit aftershe had woken me fourteen times on the night of 6 January. I could feelmyself becoming a zombie at last. We had to wait several days before abed was available, and, strange to say, Catherine became rather morepeaceful during those days and nights.

On Thursday 9 January, when I left her at the hospital, she was quietand co-operative. After a night of sound sleep, I returned to the hospitaland learned that Catherine had lain awake all night calling for help andkeeping all the terminally ill folk awake.

Michelle, the manager of the Palliative Care Unit, did not mess about.She sent Catherine next morning back to the locked ward for thedementia sufferers. And so, for the third time in five months, Catherinehad been expelled from the Palliative Care Unit for bad behaviour.

15 January 2009

From the time when she first learned that she had cancer, Catherine hasasked many a doctor to estimate how long she might live. None woulddo so. However, the specialist presently in charge of her let slip to metoday that an oncologist had estimated last May that Catherine had onlyfour or five months left. That was eight months ago. Catherine comes

from tough stock. Three of her father’s four siblings lived well into theirnineties.

25 January 2009

Tonight will be the seventeenth night that Catherine has spent in thelocked ward for victims of dementia. The Palliative Care Unit is willing totake her back, so I’ve been told, but Catherine is not welcome there untilshe can spend three consecutive nights without crying out from time totime. In the meanwhile, her cancer seems to be advancing. She coughsoften. Sometimes she produces a phlegm-like substance from her throat.She eats less — much less than a month ago — and complains thatswallowing is difficult.

3 February 2009

I was told today by the nursing manager of the geriatric unit of whichthe locked ward is a part — I was told that Catherine will go back to thePalliative Care Unit as soon as a bed becomes available. I won’t be sorryto leave the locked ward. Several of the aged inmates wander around ina state of confusion and sit on strangers’ beds or harangue them.Catherine has several times been bothered by an elderly woman whoinsists that I am her brother Wilfred. Today, a man I had supposed tobe always genial picked up a walking-frame and struck it continuallyagainst a plate-glass window in an attempt to escape from the ward.

Catherine sleeps for much of the time and is mostly confused when sheis awake. I have no way of telling how much of her confusion is due tothe massive amount of tranquillisers and mind-altering drugs that shehas to take.

11 February 2009

Catherine moves tomorrow to the PCU for what will surely be the lasttime. This is my last circular letter. Most of you will receive a phone callor a letter within 24 hours after Catherine has died. Persons living indistant parts will receive in due course a copy of the eulogy that I willhave delivered at her funeral.Gerald

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*brg* Catherine died on 19 February 2009.

Two lettersfrom Bruce Gillespie on behalf of Elaine Cochrane

23 June 2008

Dear Catherine:It’s been a few weeks since Gerald sent me news of your illness. I’ve feltso depressed about the news that I haven’t known what to say. Geraldsuggested phoning late in the afternoon, but inevitably I reach 8 or 9 inthe evening before I remember that I was going to phone.

Throughout the years I’ve found that I’ve often been able to cheer peopleup with my letters. I can’t say anything cheery about the diagnosis youreceived in late May.

However, I can say how much your friendship has meant to me — andlater to Elaine and me — since 1971, when we first met. I could say alot about those wonderful parties at your place, and the endless longconversations, especially in the 1970s. In particular, I thank you for beinga friend during those difficult days, before I got together with Elaine.

In particular, I can remember a night when you fed me Yorkshirepudding, during the days when I was batching at Carlton Street. Thanksfor the double kindness — home cooking at a time when I was hardlyhaving any, and the companionship of sitting around the table with yourfamily — and the constant willingness to help out, even when I seemedto be my own worst enemy.

Enjoying the company of the family was good too: Gavin, Martin andGiles, especially during the seventies, and also Gerald’s brother Peter(although I think I met him only once or twice). Also, all the otherwonderful people I met at parties or around the dinner table at your

place. Whatever happened to the Zikas, I wonder?

Life is too short, and there is always much left undone. I just hope that,like my mother in her mid eighties, you feel that you have had a wonderfullife, despite the constant drag of debilitating illness during the last tenyears or so.We will be thinking of you.Bruce (for Elaine)

23 June 2008

Dear Gerald:I don’t really know what to say to either of you after the news ofCatherine’s illness, but I have sent a letter separately to Catherine toexpress our thanks for her kindness and companionship over the years.

Of course, I probably would never have met her if it hadn’t been formeeting you at Publications Branch. As you reminded me, life was ratherdifferent then. At the beginning of 1971, Catherine and you had had thetwins, and I met them sometime in the middle of that year. I also wentto several great parties at your place, but what I appreciated most wasthe companionship of sitting around the dinner table at your place duringthose years when I was batching at Carlton Street. Catherine and youcertainly did a lot for me, including arranging that meeting with Kristinin 1975. At that stage of my life I seemed to be my own worst enemy,but somehow life was heading me in the right direction, towards Elaine.

Yours sincerelyBruce

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Catherine Murnane, 1995(photo: Gerald Murnane).

Catherine and Geraldoff to the races, 1971

(photo:Murnane family collection).

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