Free The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway Page A

they did, from the totally enclosed world of a school, with its boyish high spirits, it was hard for them to change emotional gear and set immediately to work on whatever projects had been saved for a time when there were several extra pairs of strong hands available. Mealtimes were particularly difficult because inevitably their world contained many points of reference beyond Coorain. Much of what they reported seemed frivolous to parents who had never attended a fashionable school and had struggled for the considerable learning they possessed. In better times they might have entered enthusiastically into this new world of their sons, but my father in particular jumped to the conclusion that his sons were not working hard at school. In fact they were, but they now lived in a culture in which it was a serious
faux pas
to indicate that one worked hard at study. The two worlds were not easy to mesh. As a result, the boys tended to work together; or we three made ourrecreations as unobtrusively as possible away from the adult world. Bob’s passion was electronics. We spent hours together winding coils and puzzling our way through the diagrams which guided the construction of his first shortwave radio. He instructed me patiently in the characteristics of radio waves, and explained elementary concepts in physics by duplicating many of the demonstrations in his school textbooks. Barry took me with him on his early morning trips to collect the rabbits and foxes he trapped to help control these populations, which were hazards to our sheep. The skins provided him pocket money for investment in a wide variety of projects. While he was home from school, guides on writing short stories, books on muscle building, magazines about automobiles lent the mail bag an excitement lacking at other times.
    There was not much room in the household routine for the mood swings and questioning of adolescence. Discipline was strict, and departures from it earned immediate punishment. The cloud of parental disapproval could be heavy when there was no escaping to other society. At sixteen, Bob let slip his religious doubts during a lunchtime conversation. Though these were a logical consequence of his heavily scientific school program, my parents were outraged. They had expected that by sending him to a high Anglican school, his religious education was ensured. Religious belief was a touchy subject in the family because my father adhered to his Catholicism while my mother was outspoken in her criticism of Catholic ideas on sexuality and the subordination of women. There was little occasion for the expression of these differences because there was no place of worship in either faith within seventy to a hundred miles of Coorain. Still, the differences slumbered under the surface. Poor Bob was treated as an unnatural being for his doubts and accused of being ungrateful for the sacrifices made to send him to a religious school. I was glad when the boys returned safely to school a week later without more explosions of discord. I was puzzled about the whole questionof religion myself, since my parents both seemed highly moral people to me. As both faiths seemed to produce excellent results, I did not know what to make of the difference. When we made one of our rare visits to Sydney, and my parents separated for the day, my mother to shop, my father to visit banks and wool merchants, I usually went with him, since I got tired and vexed my mother by complaining while she rushed to do a year’s shopping in a matter of days. At the end of the day, before setting out for our hotel or flat, my father would stop at St. Mary’s Cathedral for vespers. I liked the ritual and the Latin chant. I also understood when he said it would be better not to mention these visits to my mother.
    The routine of the academic year required that the boys return to school at the end of the summer vacation before the periods of most intense activity on the property: crutching time in