by Fleur Beale
Retrieving the tape from the post hole was going to be tricky because the community immediately posted guards on the gate. The next day, after much thought, the crew decided to ask if they could go back to apologise and collect their confiscated gear. The community gave their permission and it was then simply a matter of pausing long enough at the hole to retrieve the tape.
Phil didn’t get to see Cherish. He gave Melanie permission to screen the footage.
Undoubtedly he would have been barred from contact anyway, but his involvement in bringing the sex charges against his father ensured that he wasn’t going to get anything he asked for.
There’s footage of Dawn back in Christchurch afterwards. Still with her American accent, she says, ‘The baby wasn’t there. Cherish wasn’t there.’ She can’t understand what happened.
When she’s asked about her mother not being with them, she says she tries not to think about it. She tells how she sent the community a letter and wrote on it, I bet you wouldn’t like it if you had no mum. She speaks of her brief visit to Sandy. ‘Mum tried to tell me to come back here, and she doesn’t want me to go and stay with Dad. She tried to tell me that Dad was a bad person and stuff. But at least she got a photo of us – of all of us.’ About Cherish she says, ‘They were too scared Dad would just grab the baby and go. I’d rather stay with my mum, but not in that community. I didn’t want to leave her.’ She says she’d like to get the army and just go in and rescue her and the baby.
Phil had been stunned to find he had a seventh child, but once he cooled down he was forced to accept that she was in the community forever. He discovered later that when Sandy returned from America she hadn’t known she was pregnant and was devastated when she found out. She thought Neville would say she was carrying a bastard because of what he’d said when she was pregnant with Andreas, but Neville, no doubt recognising the power the child would give him over Phil, decided that this baby was a blessing.
Cherish’s birth certificate gives her date of birth as May 1992. Sandy, by this time, had changed her own name from Sandra Cooper to Prayer Darling. Cherish’s surname is registered as Darling, but according to the information on the certificate, she has no father. Sandy says God gave her Cherish, but Phil feels he might have had a bit to do with it himself. He’s certain that this daughter was conceived in Canada on the amorous night that Sandy had instigated.
Knowing Phil had discovered Cherish’s existence, Neville took extreme precautions. He ordered Naomi and Sandy to keep bags packed with what they called their disguise clothes – clothing that wouldn’t look out of place in the outside world. Whenever Phil was in the country, or whenever they heard a rumour that he was there, Neville would give Naomi $1000 and send her, Sandy and Cherish away from Gloriavale for a month. Once, somebody returning from a trip to Greymouth reported that they’d seen Phil. Naomi and Sandy grabbed Cherish and their disguise clothes, jumped in a van, and disappeared for four weeks. Phil hadn’t even been in the country.
All this is proof to Phil that the entire saga of his marriage and its subsequent demise is not about him and Sandy; it’s about his father and him.
He prepared to return home from Christchurch, his mind still spinning from the news of this seventh child. It was difficult to take in, as was the depth of hate his father harboured for him. It was a hatred born of Neville’s own version and interpretation of events, which as far as Phil could see, had no respect for what had really happened.
Phil was relieved to turn his mind to other matters. It was good that his brother Michael had finally agreed to come and live with him and his family in Australia. The kids were also looking forward to seeing Michael. Phil told him how they had his room all ready and couldn’t wait for him to get there.
Both brothers had dinner that evening with Faith and her family, all of them cheered to see how much happier and more relaxed Michael was. He tipped the coins out of his pockets and scattered them among his nieces and nephews, teasing them and laughing with them. He was light-hearted and full of fun. Phil hugged him goodbye at the end of the evening, telling him again how great it was going to be, having him live with them.
At 11 that night, Faith, Alan and Phil were woken by the police knocking on the door. Michael had been found hanging in Hagley Park. They needed somebody to formally identify his body.
Phil stayed on for the funeral. Faith notified the community when the funeral was to be. They responded by saying they would bury Michael next to his mother at Gloriavale. It was ten years since Michael’s first expulsion from the community. Neville would bury the son he’d rejected, but only on his own terms. The funeral went ahead in Christchurch, with none of the Gloriavale family in attendance. The burial was included in the TV documentary. Rain falls as the casket is lowered into the earth. The brothers and sisters who tried so hard to support Michael as he struggled with depression and drug abuse weep for the loss of the young man they loved, who had found no way to live happily in the world.
Phil had to go home and break the news to his kids, a task made more difficult by his lack of a partner. On the plane trip home, he felt numb. Michael had been so full of life before his cruel expulsion from the community and now he was dead. Knowing something of the anguish his brother had suffered, Phil was devastated. Later he would feel angry. Right now there was too much grief to leave room for anger.
CHAPTER TWELVE: A REVELATION
Likewise, the husband is bound to the wife as long as she lives, and only if she dies is he loosed from the law of his wife so that he is free to marry another woman.
WHAT WE BELIEVE, P. 57
Phil struggled with being single but never thought of trying to find another partner. Neville’s edict had been that only if your spouse died were you free to marry again and Phil never thought to question it. Even though his religious belief had faded away, he’d not examined many of the rules instilled in him as he grew up, including the one concerning divorce. God didn’t allow divorce therefore you weren’t free to marry again while your spouse lived. However, one day Tendy asked him a question that blew his mind: were they ever going to get a new mother? Once the idea was planted, it took hold. Phil knew nothing about dating or how to build a relationship with a woman but in typical fashion, he charged headlong into the unknown territory of finding a mate.
He decided a dating agency would be the best way of going about it and his first introduction was to Carol, a single mother with one child. He didn’t wait for introductions to anyone else, but blasted into her quiet life, catching her up in the energy he created. Despite the obvious ‘handicap’ of coming as a package with his six children, he impressed her with his vitality and irrepressible spontaneity. They could make this work, of course they could. He swept her along on the tide of his optimism and zest for life. She moved in with her son not long after she and Phil started dating. He assumed the relationship would be permanent and accordingly set about getting a divorce from Sandy. He didn’t think it would be easy, but he sent her the papers and was astonished when they came back signed. Perhaps she didn’t tell Neville, who would almost certainly have refused any request his son made – especially this one. The family don’t know why she signed, and without any fuss. Phil was too grateful to spend much time wondering about it.
Phil’s children loved having Carol’s motherly presence. They’d had Nina but she was always more like a big sister than a mother. It was great, too, to have Carol’s little son as part of the family.
With Carol there to care for the children, Phil put his time and energies into making money. In October 1994 he was able to take Carol, her son, and his kids to the Gold Coast fun parks for a holiday. A home video shot at Sea World shows Phil smiling at the camera, his hands on Carol’s shoulders, saying, ‘And this is Mrs Cooper.’
She pulls away. ‘You wish.’
The relationship had too much stacked against it. They had different expectations of marriage, and Phil’s previous experience hadn’t prepared him for a partner who wasn’
t programmed to accept everything he did and said with meek submission. He didn’t understand that he needed to put the time into building a solid partnership. Not long after the holiday, it ended badly. Nina also fell out with Phil, sided with Carol over the split, and moved out of Phil’s house to live with her.
The children missed Carol, Dawn more than the others. She had never stopped grieving for Sandy and now another mother-figure had left her. Phil was happy for his kids to keep up the relationship, encouraging them to visit whenever they wanted to, and Dawn spent a lot of time with Carol and Nina. Israel remembers Carol trying to play the children off against their father. He’d seen enough of his grandfather’s control games to be aware of what she was trying to do and, as he saw it, she was using them to get back at Phil. Dawn’s behaviour began to deteriorate and where she led, Justine and Tendy followed.
Phil reacted to the break-up in his usual manner, putting his head down and working. However it wasn’t long before he began to think again of finding a partner. He went back to the dating agency and early in 1995 received an introduction to Bev who, like Carol, was a single mother with a young son. For the first few times when Phil went to meet her, he took Crystal and Andreas with him. She assumed that these were the children mentioned on his profile until one day he said he had something to tell her and pulled out a photo of all six children. But that wasn’t all. He showed her the magazine articles about them and told her he would understand if she wanted to end the relationship. She decided not to and they kept dating. Her friends and work colleagues were fascinated that she was dating the man whose face they had seen in the magazines, and with whose story they were familiar.
A home video made in April that year has a comment from Bev that might be telling about the relationship. She looks at the camera and says, ‘There’s Dad, on the mobile like always.’ However, Phil’s enthusiasm for life, the excitement he created, and the whirl of energy around him won the day, along with his certainty that they could make the relationship work. Bev moved in to his household not long after they started dating. The children were excited when Phil told them Bev and her little son Mitchell were coming to live with them. A new mother! Somebody to look after them.
They dressed in their best clothes to wait for her. Ten-year-old Tendy especially looked forward to having somebody who would give her attention. Maybe with the new mother she’d no longer feel like the odd one out, the middle child with nothing special to recommend her – unlike Justine the other middle child who was tomboyish, sporty and so like their father.
Even though Israel liked having a new mother and therefore a normal family, he realises he must have been a pain in the neck to Bev because he insisted on looking after the others the way he’d always done. He knew how to, and she didn’t do things the way he liked them done. He used every excuse he could to stay home because it was still so much easier than going to school, and his stomach didn’t hurt so much when he didn’t have to face school.
The girls welcomed Bev. It was great to have a mother again and Tendy particularly developed a special bond with her. Andreas got a new brother, a bit younger than he was. All the kids loved having a toddler in the family again.
Bev threw herself into family life. She joined Phil in the lolly-selling business as well as taking on as much of the role of mother as Israel would let her. By this time, as well as having stomach pains, he sometimes had to get up in the night to vomit. He hid it from Bev as well as Phil, experimenting with anything he thought might help. He discovered that eating plain white bread last thing at night was often enough to prevent the vomiting.
Later in the year Sandy’s younger sister Yvette who had left the community along with Judah, their father, came to stay. She saw that Israel wasn’t well and noticed the way he often pressed his stomach after he’d eaten. When she tackled him about it, he told her about the pains but reassured her he was okay, he’d worked out how to deal with the vomiting. She was horrified and dragged him off to the doctor, something he’d never considered. Doctors cost money and in the back of his mind was the community belief that illness was a sign of weakness so you didn’t complain. The doctor prescribed ulcer medication which he had to take for a year. It fixed the pain and vomiting, and the follow-up appointment for an endoscopy a year later clearly showed the scarring from a stomach ulcer.
In December 1995 Phil and Yvette both returned to Christchurch for Neville’s trial on 11 counts of sexual violation, one of which was the masturbation of Phil as a teenager. Phil found it an excruciating ordeal, especially when Neville’s lawyer tried to go into detail such as the expression on Neville’s face, and which hand he had used. Phil just looked over at his father and told the lawyer to ask him, he was the one who knew.
The jury brought in a guilty verdict and Neville was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment on ten counts of sexual violation. He appealed and a date was set for the case to be heard in the Court of Appeal in Wellington in May of the following year.
Phil came back from the December trial and threw himself into work, more determined than ever to show his father he could succeed on his own out in the world. He and Bev discussed their future and how they would support their family. Phil, with the experience of the waterbed business behind him and knowing how that had generated wealth for the community, suggested that they buy a business.
He didn’t want a going concern, but something he could build up for himself. All he had to do was find a suitable business then throw into it his energy, determination and motivation. As always, there was the double drive of wanting to do the best for his family and of showing his father he could succeed without him.
Early in 1996 Phil happened to see a signage business for sale for $10,000. It was the price rather than the type of business that caught his attention because he considered it shouldn’t be too difficult to persuade a bank to lend such a modest sum. The prospect energised him. This was it, the business he would build up and make his own. Sure, there were a few problems to solve: he had no capital, knew nothing about the industry, and had no premises. On the plus side, he had energy, drive, and belief in his own abilities. Bev supported his ambitions, helping wherever she could.
He approached a bank for a loan, asking for the full $10,000. They turned him down. A father of seven young children, who had no equity and no permanent job, didn’t add up to a good risk. He went to another bank, and another, until every bank in town had turned him down. As a last resort, Bev suggested he approach a building society. If they rejected his application he’d have to think of something else, but time was running out as the owner of the business wanted the deal settled.
Phil walked into the interview room, going over his pitch in his head. The woman behind the desk stood up to shake his hand. ‘You’re the dad with the six kids who rescued them from that cult, aren’t you?’
That was the breakthrough. She’d been impressed by the magazine stories she’d read about him and wanted to give him a chance, apologising that the rules would only allow the society to lend him $6,000. But Phil was ecstatic. He was on the way. He borrowed $2,000 from a friend then put the offer to the vendor that he would pay $8,000 up front. If he couldn’t pay the final $2,000 at the end of the first month, he would forfeit the lot. The vendor accepted the deal and the business was Phil’s. It came with an old computer that he didn’t even know how to turn on, and two days’ training.
He involved the whole family in the first, hectic set-up months. They helped him deliver business cards all around town and were delighted when the first commission came in. It was to make a ‘Happy Birthday’ banner for Hungry Jack, the burger chain of the buy-one-get-one-free vouchers. Phil cut out the letters using the machine that came with the business, then got the children to help him lay it out. His building experience had given him layout skills but all the rest was trial and error.
Bev and the children helped wherever they could, touting for business by going through the Yellow Pages of the phone book and sending faxes to c
ompanies asking for their business. In the weekends and after school Israel would help his dad on the computer while the girls cleaned down any vehicles to be sign-written. Phil taught all of them how to apply the letters and they’d work together to squeegee them on then pull off the application tape. By the end of the month he was able to pay the vendor the remaining $2,000.
They were good months for the children, with their father around more of the time. They had a mother again. Their dad was happy, and suddenly there was more money. He gave them surprises and bought them presents. It was like Christmas happening every week. The whole process fascinated Israel. So this was what a business could do. It was a powerful thing if it could drag their family out of poverty. He began to wonder about a career involving business, though the idea of producing movies still attracted him. But then, neither might come to pass because he stayed home from school too often to do well.
The business took off. Phil loved the excitement of it, the buzz of the energy he could generate. He took on employees, read up on anything to do with signage that he could find, and expanded the business. Because of his ignorance when he started, he didn’t know what could and couldn’t be done. People would ask, ‘Can you do this?’ He would say yes, then later figure out how. His approach led to innovative ways of doing things and he learnt from the inevitable mistakes.
In May 1996 Neville’s appeal against his sentence was heard in the Court of Appeal in Wellington. Only the most serious of the charges were prosecuted. Phil travelled to Wellington to hear the verdict. The sentence was upheld and Neville Cooper aka Hopeful Christian was sent to prison for five years on three charges of sexual assault.
The verdict was devastating for the community, with many almost losing their faith as a result. The hierarchy were secretive about the facts of the case, telling the community members that their leader was in prison because he was a Christian, just like Paul and Silas in the Bible who got imprisoned then went out and preached again. All the young ones believed it, and some of the older ones did, too.
