by Bunkie King
Chapter 25
A healing process
In 2006, the year Jacques and I begin divorce proceedings, I experience seven of the ten major life stresses: I take out a mortgage, build a new house, move house, sell a house, get divorced, my mother dies, and then I lose my job. With so many major endings and losses I survive these blows on a day-by-day basis. Yet even with this tsunami of events I am never as low as at that time of my collapse in 2000. I have developed enough resilience to rebuild and am riding the wave into a healthy, new, independent life. After being a submissive, reliant and insubstantial person, I have come to find myself anew as I prepare to enter my 60s.
After my years alone, my most important realisation is that I don’t need a partner to feel like a whole person. And I certainly won’t allow myself to be mistreated or disrespected again. The little girl in me has finally grown up. I have stopped believing in a fantasy prince who’ll take care of me. I know I can’t rely on someone else to fulfil my needs. I now understand that to be in a fulfilling relationship, or to be fulfilled in life, it is important to feel love for ourselves. I lost myself trying to be right for another person. I now understand myself and know I’m worthy of respect.
Jack and I were two emotionally abandoned children with similar needs who found each other — and our love did blaze for a while. Unfortunately, it seemed that we were not able to recognise or meet our own needs, so what chance did we have of meeting each other’s? It is only now, having the whole story in front of me, that I see the patterns that began with him and continued with Jacques. I realise just how unprepared I was. I didn’t understand my emotions. I had no idea about the games people play or their motives in relationships. I have no resentment of Jack’s slow, subtle seduction of me; at the time I was desperately lonely. But when I accepted him back without question or explanation following his and Leona’s elopement, my belief in myself faltered.
When Jack said he also wanted to live with my sister I was too entangled emotionally, too in need of his love, to reject that. My need was so great that I willingly accepted the crumbs off the table; that was all I thought I was worth. The possibility of rejection, of feeling unwanted again, was too painful to contemplate. It has taken me over 40 years to fully comprehend all this. Right from the beginning I established a pattern of allowing myself to be led and demoralised. The emotionally unsympathetic treatment I lived through has caused me deep trauma that persists to this day.
As for my relationship with Leona, I find it hard to explain how two sisters could have so little emotional connection even though we spent 30 years of our lives together, 15 of those living with the same man. After I left the threesome, I learned from another sister, in whom Leona had confided, that the night she busted Jack and me in their bedroom he gave her an ultimatum: he would stay with her only if he could have and sleep with both of us. If I had realised this at the time, it would have given me a sense of strength in the relationship, knowing my presence was wanted and valued, that I wasn’t just a spare wheel. It also makes me see how both Leona and I were so desperate to accept Jack on any terms. We gave away all our authority when we agreed to the threesome right at the start.
Unlike me, Leona escaped being labelled as a sexually wanton woman because she ended up living ‘monogamously’ with Jack — and had his child. While she became ‘respectable’, I am haunted to this day by the ‘blonde bimbo mistress’ image due to the notoriety of our relationship. In my day-to-day dealings with people, I’m fearful of revealing my past identity — I expect to be treated with suspicion if not outright disgust. I don’t disclose personal details about my life, like why I have been to places or with whom and, as a result, may come across as being too reserved. I am reluctant to open up and let people in. So be it.
I’ve sometimes wondered how much of the public’s reaction was because Leona and I were sisters. Would it have been less sensational and more acceptable if we hadn’t been related? Jack shacked up with two female lovers was one thing, but perhaps our being sisters meant the concept of family was fractured and a social taboo very publicly broken.
***
My intention in writing this book is not to knock an ‘Aussie icon’ off his pedestal or to make money. If it was, I could have done all that a long time ago. My goal is to reclaim my self-respect and set the record straight, both for my sake and for my children. This book is part of my healing process. It has taken me until now to acknowledge my part in attracting similar men in my two long-term relationships. I thought I needed to be with a dominant male because they could nurture and protect me. In searching for these qualities outside myself, I never learned that real nurturing, strength and protection have to come from within. Ultimately, I ended up with men who only cared about themselves.
Jack was unwilling to take responsibility for himself or his actions. With Jacques it was the same. Just as I undermined myself by sharing Jack with other women, I also put up with too much from my husband. I didn’t question them when they stayed out all night. I was afraid to speak up for fear they’d feel hurt and leave me. I believed that if I was faithful, gave them my complete support and did everything they wanted, they would value my contribution to their lives. What really happened was something altogether different: because I put my needs last, so did they.
If I had stood up for myself earlier with Jacques things may have worked out. Perhaps he would have been a better husband and father. I accept that I made a mistake by taking on the martyr role, treating Jacques as an invalid who didn’t have to pay his way. This gave him the freedom to abdicate any responsibility. It also meant that he didn’t have a real sense of place or role in the family. Ultimately, he was clutching at ways to be the husband, the father.
Neither of these men was capable of nurturing or protecting me. The common factor that drove them both was, I believe, their emotionally unstable childhoods. Jacques’ father was a heavy drinker who mistreated his mother. I feel that neither was given adequate emotional nurturing nor took the necessary steps to heal themselves; instead they self-medicated to achieve a false sense of wellbeing, of confidence to face the world. No doubt this was the same reason I indulged heavily in marijuana and cigarettes. Perhaps we all need to self-medicate to handle our emotional pain and inner demons. It could be that because I hadn’t really experienced a loving parent figure, I felt more comfortable with these emotionally unavailable types of men — that felt normal to me.
I’m learning more about myself and about emotions through my children than I ever did from my parents or with Jack and Jacques. Whenever a problem arises in our relationship, I now know better than to ignore it and pretend everything’s OK. Sometimes it’s extremely hard but I have to try and deal with it. Through parenting, I am learning how to openly express my feelings and thoughts and to have a clearer understanding of theirs. This has been a long and steep learning curve for me. Because I put Jacques’ needs ahead of their emotional welfare, my children were harmed. Rectifying this takes time. When I realised he was being emotionally manipulative with me, I should have known this was affecting them as well. At the time I was floundering and unable to acknowledge my own emotional needs let alone theirs.
Many people find it difficult to empathise with those who stay in problematic relationships. It defies rationality. I hope my story goes some way to laying out the complex factors involved, and how someone can find themselves in that situation and become so enmeshed that it is difficult, if not impossible, to pull yourself out. It is especially difficult when children are involved — every instinct keeps you hoping that things will improve. So much is at stake.
Writing the story of my life has not been an easy process. It’s taken a long time and has required — no, make that demanded — that I confront aspects of my life that are by turns painful, embarrassing and sometimes humiliating. While sifting through the ashes of my two fractured relationships, I continually asked myself: Why didn’t I take more control? Why did I allow myself to endure such hardship? Why d
idn’t I just walk away, or at least while I was with Jack, why didn’t I learn to fully embrace the more exotic aspects of our life, the travel and the adventure, to be more in the moment? To find some balance?
There are no simple answers to any of this. I know that I needed to feel loved, even if that love didn’t prove to be even close to the concept of romantic love that I’d conjured up in my mind. Damn those storybooks of my youth! And I’m sure that the nature of my upbringing, the breakdown of my parents’ relationship and the psychodrama that accompanied that, made me needier than most, willing to accept something that felt like love.
The truth, though, is this: ultimately, I needed to find a way to respect and love myself, rather than search for my identity through a relationship with someone else. I didn’t write this book on a whim: the journey that I’ve shared is truly a search for the real me, a person who I can confidently see and appreciate when I look in the mirror. For fear of sounding like a Beyonce song, I’m now an independent woman. I really am. In the past I didn’t recognise the person looking back at me — who was the real Bunkie? Was I the partner of a movie star, the willing participant in an unconventional domestic arrangement that for a time was one of the most whispered-about relationships in Australia? Or was I just along for the ride, always on the lookout for something more real? Was I simply a young woman struggling to find her way? And why did I tolerate so much from Jacques: was it purely for our children, my children?
Was I fearful of being completely by myself? If so, why does it feel so right now, as I move into the later years of my life? Should I have always been alone? Is that the only way I could discover who I really was?
I have no ready-made answers for all of this. I figure, though, that in some ways I needed to live through what I did in order to find the real me. I endured a lot of pain and heartache, there’s no question about it, but I now realise that it made me a stronger, more real and rounded person. If there’s one trait I can now give myself credit for, it’s just that: I’m tough. My skin has never been thicker. I’m also at peace with my past, as pathetic as I sometimes was. I can’t change anything, anyway. It happened. It was real. It’s sad that Jack, Le and I haven’t spoken since I broke away, but that’s what happened. Such is life.
I fell into my three-way relationship with Jack and Le with my eyes wide open; I may have been young but I feel as though I had a reasonable understanding of what I was getting into. It was only when the fault lines in the relationship became transparent, when it became clear to me that it would never be an equal partnership, that I became despondent, and tried to break free. It took me a long time to detach myself, in part because there were aspects of the relationship that I truly loved, such as life on the farm and travel — and Jack, too, in his best moments. Also Jacques, at least during the early years of our relationship.
But, ultimately, I had to move on in order to find the real me.
So where does this leave me today? I don’t regard my life as a failure; anything but. I have two great kids and wake up each day feeling pretty good about myself, comfortable enough in my own skin, still very much alive and up for new encounters. I’ve had experiences and met characters that most people only dream about — I mean, really, who could boast that they got to ride shotgun with crazy old Dennis Hopper? And how many people get to see from close range the strange, seductive madness that is the film industry? I’ve travelled a lot, loved enough, learned plenty and ventured far and wide. Laughed on many occasions, too.
Writing this book has given me a newfound sense of identity and the strength to confront the demons of my past. After decades of silence, I have finally found my voice. I now believe in myself enough to state my truth publicly. As for my frustrated hopes and dreams, I regret not having had the chance to continue acting and making it a career, or furthering my education. But I’m also learning to be gentle on myself and accept that I had limited awareness to make well-informed, sensible choices.
My life has been so concerned with survival that it’s hard to assess my aspirations for this next phase, my so-called autumn years. In my work, I care for the elderly who are at the end of their lives. It brings home to me what the future holds for all of us. I hope I’ll have the physical and mental ability to keep celebrating my achievements. I want to pass what is left of my life doing what I enjoy — reading, sewing, having lively conversations, connecting with nature, listening to music. Getting on with this thing called living.
I’m now in a relatively peaceful place. In the gentle morning sun, I sit on my back steps and watch the birds in the trees and the flowers, just like I did when I was a young, carefree child. I accept that what happened in my life was my path; it made me who I am today. Who knows what new pathways lie ahead?
I’m the baby (literally) of six children, at home in Shellharbour.
Also at Shellharbour, with my doll and her pram.
With my sister Maria at home in Shellharbour, late 1950s.
Trying to look cool in shades, holidaying at far-flung Walgett.
At the wedding of Rudy and Flora Becker, Wollongong, 1958. Back row: Maria, Mother, Father, Julia and Hyone. Front row: Tonia, me, Le and my brother.
Me playing in the dirt at Tathra, where we moved in the early 1960s.
Leaning against a column in Tathra.
Me (left) with my niece at my sister Hyone’s home in Gwynneville, NSW.
Playing dress-ups while living at Kirribilli, after my parents’ marriage fell apart.
My grandmother Dorothy Mazel with her prized miniature Dachshunds.
My sister Hyone, my brother and I, at Carrington Falls.
Me with Le. Little did we know what lay ahead for both of us.
From my ‘portfolio’, shot by Le’s boyfriend, David, in 1969 when I was 14.
Another of my portfolio shots from 1969; this one was my ‘Vogue look’.
Wearing a favourite white lace dress, in 1969, the year that I met Jack.
A photo taken after Jack filmed the iconic Sunday Too Far Away, 1974.
The farm near Coffs Harbour. On the back of this photo, Jack wrote: Too hard for me / To say goodbye forever / So I’ll just say goodnight forever / To the child. My love “Same as it ever was” Jack x
Jack, me (far right), Jack’s son Patrick (left), and a friend during a working bee on the farm.
Jack at the back porch on the farm. On the rear of the photograph he wrote: For Bunkie all my love, Jack x — 84.
Jack on the farm with Bobo, the horse I loved.
Nude swimming at the Cascades on the farm. I threw you a ball / You caught it / It was my life, Jack wrote on this shot. You were young, you thought it was a game / and so you threw it back to me. My love Jack – 79.
Le and I farewell Jack at Sydney International Airport. For 15 years, Le and I ‘shared’ Jack.
My baby Bobo, very soon after being born — and rejected by her mother.
In the car outside Sydney Airport, about to leave for England, November 1978, in my first attempt to break free from our ‘most unusual arrangement’.
With Jack and his son Patrick, Cannes 1979.
With Jack, soon after returning from my period of exile in England. I was 25 years old.
Me (facing camera), helping prepare breakfast on the farm.
A shot of me on the farm with ‘Old Jack’, our draft horse. Our fancy ‘guest accommodation’ is in the background.
Jack, me (front), a bearded Michael Caton, and others, washing up after dinner on the farm.
Twirling a brolly, during a revue hosted by David Bowie, during Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, Cook Islands, September 1982.
Sunning myself while staying in Kahala Avenue, Honolulu, on the way home from another overseas junket.
With Jeremy Thomas, producer of Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, and Jack, Auckland, New Zealand, September 1982.
My only film appearance, cast as one of Jack’s many girlfriends in Scobie Malone.
My ‘baby’ Bobo, now all grown up
. Whenever I returned to the farm, I headed straight for Bobo.
With Jack in his beloved kimono, Barcom Avenue, Darlinghurst.
Me at Grenada 1984, at the time I decided to permanently leave Jack — and Le — after 15 years together.
On the rear of this polaroid, Jack wrote: Many thanks despite our rage — all my love, Jack.
Celebrating Christmas in 1989.
My final visit with my father at Tongarra, shortly before his death in 1993.
Celebrating my son Stephan’s eighth birthday, at our home in Katoomba, NSW, 1993.
Mint and Stephan at the Russian Ballet with my sister Julia.
My sister Julia, Mother, Mint and me, at home in Katoomba.
