Stars over Shiralee

by Sheryl McCorry

  It was up to me to leave, is what he meant, but I felt like I was under a heavy weight that held my limbs down and made it impossible for me to speak out for myself. Like those dreams where you need to scream to save yourself but you can’t. You’re scared to death and you open your mouth wide but no sound comes out. It was as if my health and marriage problems were slowly burying me and I didn’t really care. It became easier not to care. And yet not once, even in my darkest days, did I consider suicide. I would not take that way out. I would not do that to my children.

  My husband’s behaviour became so bizarre, I didn’t want to speak of it to anyone. If ever I crossed him, no matter how inadvertently, he’d respond full of hostility with his mantra, ‘You’re mad in the head.’ Once he invited guests for tea; he cooked and served them all but there was none for me. I was fading into the background; it was like something out of a dark fairy tale.

  Then writing in my bedroom one day, I discovered I was being cast as the scapegoat in some drama between Terry and his sister-in-law Jean, his partner in the caravan park. Terry had had an architect draw up plans for a new reception area and shop, topped with a flat for each family above. I had suggested he discuss this new project with Jean but he didn’t think it was necessary. Now all hell was breaking loose in the dining room. Terry had come out of the office to find Jean with the building plans spread out across the tables and demanding to know why she had not been notified. I didn’t blame her. I would have felt the same way. Only I was shocked to hear Terry tell her that I was the one who should have passed the information on! I considered going out and setting the record straight, but the heat of the exchange made me think better of it. I was too weary of conflict to go looking for it. In the end, the project was put on hold anyway.

  I think Jean knew enough about Terry to realise I wasn’t the one responsible for her being kept in the dark over his plans. It wasn’t long after this that she came to me with a problem that was causing concern in the park office. Apparently Terry, who was well into his sixties now, was playing flirtatious games with an eighteen-year-old staff member. ‘This can’t be tolerated,’ Jean said. ‘It doesn’t look good.’ Of course it didn’t look good. She wanted me to speak to him; she was as wary of his temper as I was. I agreed, though I doubted I would achieve anything.

  I never saw it coming. I had barely got the words out when he charged at me with the full force of his body, sending me flying across the office floor to crash against the old blue lounge. I opened my eyes to find my husband standing right over me, sneering down at me that there would be no marks this time. He had no remorse at all.

  When he stood there above me like that, I wish I could describe the place it put me. I was nothing, not a woman, not a person any more. The effect was to annihilate me. I was nothing and had nothing. And I truly feared that one day he would lose that last scrap of control and seriously hurt me.

  Or push me over the edge so I really would be the mad woman he kept telling me I was.

  I knew I wasn’t mad, yet I feared I so easily could be, and the fear was stronger than the knowledge. Rationally I knew I was perfectly sane, but there was a part of me that wasn’t rational, like the part that dreams and has nightmares — and I was living in a nightmare. That part of me wasn’t so sure. That part of me was terrified. Terrified of Terry, and terrified of managing on my own.

  And maybe I had always been afraid to be alone. Terry gave me nothing, no sense of security or worth, no sense that he even liked me. And yet I stayed. Why? Why wasn’t I walking away as Leisha kept begging me to? There weren’t any answers to these questions, just a hot whirling confusion. I’d see his face, with those mad eyes staring at me full of hatred, and as if I were a kangaroo staring into the headlights of an oncoming car, I could only stand there and wait for the impact.

  Why wasn’t I able to stand alone? I was renowned for my strength, but where was it? Had it vanished with McCorry? I always said he was the wind beneath my wings, that it was his belief in me that made me capable of flying. Without him I was scared of plummeting to the ground. It was an irrational fear, but it gripped me nevertheless. And even though I could see that it was irrational, I seemed unable to overcome it.

  Was that why I had said yes to Terry when he wanted to marry me? I saw a strength there I felt I needed? If only someone had been there when McCorry died, someone wise enough to tell me, ‘Sheryl, you’re going to feel terrible for a year at least, you’ll feel as if you’re drowning on your own. But you won’t drown, you’ll find the very strength McCorry always knew you had, but you’ll find it in yourself, not in anybody else. Whatever you do, don’t go clinging to some other fellow, thinking his belief will support you.’ But it was too late.

  I had exhausted myself. When I saw Terry later that evening, after all the staff had left, I whispered, ‘This isn’t a marriage, I can’t go on like this.’ He was much calmer then, and said, ‘Yes you can, one day we’ll be finished here, and all the pressure of this place, then things will be better.’ The storm had passed, there was no solution yet, only to take a big deep breath, put on that smile and keep going.

  There was always something to pull me through. Robby and Tara were living together now in the old caravan. Tara’s arrival in Robby’s life was a gift from heaven. Their relationship was new, but they were determined to make it work. With her quiet inner strength Tara was able to help Robby believe in himself again. Certainly she helped restore his battered confidence. And she probably also distracted him from worrying about me, for which I am immensely grateful. She got him eating well again too, with her great home cooking. I was so happy to have her as part of our family.

  In July 2004 it was time for my annual bone scan. We fitted in a visit to Wildwood and the Shiralee first. It was disheartening to arrive at the Wildwood farm to overgrown lawns and gardens; to open the front door of the farmhouse to that unlived-in stagnant smell. Every visit I cleaned up the sad mess, got the sprinklers going and replanted, knowing I’d repeat the whole process in six months. Nothing took root or prospered; every time I returned there, it was back to square one.

  When we arrived in Perth, Terry had business to attend to, but Kristy had taken time off work to accompany me to the hospital for my bone scan. After the procedure we sat together over a cup of coffee. She let slip that the last house she had rented a room in had burned down while she was out one day — she hadn’t told me before as she felt terrible about the loss in the fire of two saddles I had given her. But all that mattered to me was that she was unharmed. I did value the saddles, at least for nostalgia’s sake, but I no longer ride and we both had to just let them go. I was grateful to have Kristy’s presence at the hospital and in my life as a whole. I know it bothered her to know what was happening between Terry and I. But Kristy now leads a life of her own and knows where I am when she needs me. I’ll always be as proud of her as I am of my own two children.

  My results were fine, a small problem in the right shoulder again, another melanoma, but nothing I couldn’t handle. It scarcely seemed worth worrying about. That’s the funny thing about cancer. It starts off as the scariest thing in the world, but after a while you get blasé about it, especially the smaller stuff.

  And then it was Leisha’s wedding. Terry and I flew to Cairns and it was a real joy to see her little family happy and content. ‘This is the way families should be,’ I told her in a quiet moment. She was still insisting on a short ceremony without any fuss, and I half wished I’d never told her how old McCorry and I had married. She seemed set on making it a family tradition.

  Eventually, after a bit of persuasion, she gave me licence to add some trimmings, just what I could pull together in twenty-four hours. I was sure I could create a perfect wedding party on a day’s notice, and I did. I hired a car, and Terry drove me around Cairns until all was organised: a proper wedding cake, caterers, fine crockery and cutlery, white balloons and a white marquee. For once I spent a day with my husband without fighting or having an un
happy exchange of words, and I experienced him in the way he often was with other people. Magnanimous, even generous. He gave Leisha a beautiful pearl pendant for a wedding present. What was the magic ingredient, I wondered. I would have bottled it if I knew.

  Leisha and Adam were married the next day on the back lawn of their newly renovated house. The ceremony seemed so fitting, held under a massive gum tree which I saw as a perfect symbol of Leisha’s early outback years. Young Brock, dressed in long pants, white shirt and waistcoat, walked out with his mother in the place her father should have been. I couldn’t help but shed tears of happiness for them all.

  We took back some of the lovely wedding vibe with us, and for a little while life was kinder than usual at the park. But it wasn’t long before the violence came to the fore again, fuelled as usual by an excess of alcohol.

  After a fabulous concert by Jane Rutter and David Helfgott at the Mangrove Hotel, Terry’s rage towards me surfaced once again. It was rare for him to be blatantly malicious in public; it wasn’t the image he liked to project, and I could see people wondering how I could be putting up with his uncouth behaviour. But we’d come in the Landcruiser and he refused to hand over the keys; I wasn’t about to leave him with it in the tanked-up state he was in. So I spent the evening with a false smile on the outside and feeling humiliated and downtrodden on the inside.

  In some respects I had become so used to Terry’s outbursts, I hardly knew my stomach was knotted unless Leisha was there to tell me. It wasn’t just the fear of violence — verbal or physical — that was getting to me, it was my incapacity to act on my own behalf. I was ashamed, and became more and more isolated from friends and relatives who might have been able to help me if I’d spoken out. I was frightened they’d think I was a nutter.

  There were the odd occasions when someone would bring out the old me. At the caravan park there was a major problem with the plumbing for the park extension — instant ‘springs’ were sprouting all over the newly developed land, even shooting through the new bitumen roads in places! If it hadn’t been a serious and expensive problem, I’d have felt like laughing. The contractors weren’t fixing anything until Terry caught up on his payments to them — and they were holding out for a $70,000 payment.

  Terry was jumping up and down over this, and I suggested that he get all the paperwork regarding his dealings with this company from his law firm in Broome, and I would ask Brian Singleton to handle the case.

  This perfectly sensible suggestion set Terry off again. To him it was proof again that I was ‘sick in the head’. It really offended him that I had an opinion and that I dared to tell him how he should operate. He had responded the same way weeks earlier when I’d suggested he take photos of the water damage as it arose.

  The situation was still unresolved when we left for Wildwood and the southern hay season, so while we were in Perth I threw caution to the wind and arranged a meeting with Brian. Terry begrudgingly agreed to come, and I felt like giving Brian a bottle of the best French champagne when he told Terry he should have taken photographs of the sprouting fountains as they arose — exactly the advice I’d given. Had he done so, Brian said, the problem might have been solved without resorting to a solicitor’s office. He passed the case on to another Perth lawyer and after lengthy negotiations it ended with a compromise on both sides.

  Before we left, Brian said something very complimentary about the way I approached the problem, telling Terry he was lucky to have me. That gave me such a good feeling that, as we got into the car, I couldn’t help saying, ‘You know, Brian Singleton doesn’t think I’m at all mad.’ This was a big mistake of course, but it felt so good to be affirmed by someone who was completely sane and sound. Predictably, Terry’s temper flared. He didn’t say anything, but the vehicle lurched out onto the road in a dangerous manner and I was struck down with fright again.

  CHAPTER 13

  Writing the Story of my Life

  I was living out of a suitcase between the farms and the caravan park, and seemed to be constantly packing and unpacking. I promised myself I would stop for a while and concentrate on writing my memoirs for the children.

  Terry was selling and buying cattle, while Ken, his son, was flat out demolishing and replacing old fences. The southern race season was in full swing and every race day Terry would disappear, on one trip returning the proud owner of another two racehorses. Yet the next day, when I came home with a car load of plants for the farmhouse garden and asked for some money towards them, he ignored me. Such things had to come out of my housekeeping money. If the expenditure wasn’t going to benefit him directly, he was simply not interested.

  One day at Wildwood I decided I was never going to live in the caravan park again. I refused to live any longer in a single room and share my toilet and kitchen with all the staff. It was still a compromise, making Wildwood my home, but at least I wasn’t packing all the time. And there were things I needed to do for Molly.

  Terry was racing about the shed looking for tools to pull a cattle crate to bits. He was putting his glasses down and then was not able to find them again. Next he insisted I’d lost a registration card for one of his new racehorses. With more confidence then I was feeling I said quite calmly, ‘You’re always accusing others of losing or hiding things, but it’s you doing it, I see you do it.’ I lifted my gaze and met his eyes across the room.

  Near panic took hold of me at the look in his eyes and the twist to his jaw said he would kill me if he got hold of me. He took a step towards me, his fists clenching and unclenching as if out of his control. I backed away to stand by the phone and said, ‘Touch me, and I’ll call the police. I mean it.’ And I was totally amazed when he turned away and walked out of the house.

  I sat down heavily in a lounge chair to gather myself together. That’s it, I thought. I am not putting up with this bullshit any more. That night I slept with a chair wedged against my bedroom door.

  The next morning I woke to the sound of him ransacking bedroom drawers and kitchen cupboards, and the slamming of doors. I went out to the kitchen to see what all the commotion was about. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, afraid of upsetting him even more.

  ‘I’m going to Perth,’ he said, glaring at me as though I was clearly to blame for whatever was wrong.

  I asked him if he could leave me a hundred dollars as I had no cash. He said he had none. That was rubbish, he always had money on him, and he knew I knew it. At that moment I felt like I’d been hit in the solar plexus with the most severe pain, and I fainted over the kitchen sink. When I came to he was gone.

  *

  From Perth Terry went back to Broome and while he was gone I cleaned out the sheds and set bait for the rats that were again on the prowl. Terry seemed more content back up north and called me twice a day, but I knew that nothing had changed. His next foul mood was only a matter of time.

  On my own at Wildwood I was content too. Cleaning out sheds and attending to vermin seemed just the thing for me to be doing at this time, and I breathed a lot more deeply. It was as if I was doing on the outside what I was still working up to on the inside. But I had begun to feel positive. For me, too, it was only a matter of time. I felt it very strongly. I was sure I could trust that I would take the right steps when the time was right. It felt good to trust myself.

  Writing gave me a lot of joy. Every day I wrote, and often I began over my first cup of tea in the morning. I had covered the early years in Darwin and Arnhem Land, and my long courtship with McCorry. Looking back, it still seemed romantic and I felt a warmth as I remembered how well McCorry and I worked together. Thinking about those years was like a fresh breeze blowing through all the rotten wood of my current marriage.

  To cap things off Leisha rang me from Cairns to say she was pregnant. This was wonderful news. She and Adam were building the little family they always wanted. Leisha and Robby had both helped carry my load for me. I know my unhappiness had affected their lives and I was ashamed of that, but I felt so glad t
hat they both found partners who were kind and positive and generous and who loved them.

  My parents travelled down from Northampton to spend a week with me. Dad was in his eighties but he was still in good shape and he never sat still for long. He pulled down the old clothes line and erected another while mother and I got stuck into making fig jam and drinking gallons of tea as though we did this every day.

  It wasn’t all smooth sailing, though. My parents’ visit stirred up murky feelings — of having failed in my life, of being alone on my husband’s farm and marking time while I waited for the courage to make a complete break. Not that they wanted me to stick with my marriage, far from it. But to see them, still happy after 63 years together, made me wonder what was wrong with me that I could not make my marriages last.

  I was determined that I was not going to let myself go under, so when they had gone I visited my doctor. ‘Why are you taking it?’ he asked when I described the situation with Terry. ‘You need to get your own life back.’ I sat in front of him feeling like a bloody idiot, wondering where I could find the strength to make a new life for myself. He assured me a happy and stress-free life was possible without an aggressive male around me, and sent me away with a prescription for antidepressants. But I promised myself I would only take them for a short time. I wanted to get myself together and I knew I needed all my wits about me. Prescription medication can be addictive and this was my biggest fear. After a week on those particular tablets I had to dispose of them. I reacted to the medication and became sombre, feeling nothing, seeing nothing. That particular medication wasn’t good for me. Later I was prescribed a low dose of a newer antidepressant and found it eased the huge knot that was forever trembling in my stomach.

  I had been travelling this rocky road for six years now, but what never ceased to amaze me was how, when I was feeling particularly low in myself, my mobile phone would ring and I would be talking to an Aboriginal friend from the Kimberley. Katie, Alma and Jeanie often called to check on their yumun. I would stop, have a good talk and laugh with them, then get back to my life again, feeling so much better about the world.