Hellbent: Ces Waters & Me

by Margaret Wentworth

  We never met Ces’s daughter Tracey. No-one mentioned her name, but photos we looked at for research revealed a little girl looking like she sensed she didn’t really belong. Pressed, Ces said she was living in Perth with ‘a no-good alcoholic drug-taking layabout’ and criminal. He’d returned her letters unopened. The bitterness stemmed from when Tracey, 20, had left home and ‘treacherously’ worked for another horse trainer. Ces made an odd comment: ‘If she was dying of thirst I wouldn’t give her a glass of water, but if she needed a kidney she could have one of mine.’

  We had two unexpected problems during filming. John rang Christine at the nursery to schedule a shoot, and Ces rang him back, blasting him for trying to contact her there. We’d contracted a 50/50 split of all profits at the start of the work, but Ces wanted it changed to a 2 to 5 split in favour of his family, when we were two-thirds through, refusing to continue until we agreed. We had to capitulate but didn’t appreciate being cornered that way.

  Rebels with a Cause became a 50 minute documentary that was well received and sold to the Australian Broadcasting Commission and Granada TV in the UK. We also received phone calls from church and sporting groups throughout the country wanting to hire the video for its inspirational qualities. By this time John had also completed post production on a feature film called Fantasy Man which was ready to take to the market place. He had written and directed this story about male midlife crisis, based on experiences some of his peers were going through. Privately, I suspected John’s intimate knowledge of the subject came from a growing unrest in his own heart. The film sold to TV and video in most countries. The French bought theatrical rights for France and the UK.

  The two films quitted us of debt and the worry that went with it. A good time to start a family. To our delight, within a short period of time, I was pregnant with our first child. I decided to leave my pharmaceutical job and accompany John on a three-month trip overseas to sell our films and enjoy one last adventure together before the responsibilities of parenthood tied us down. We hired a Citroen car and travelled across Europe, sleeping in it at night and cooking our meals from a primus stove in the boot.

  When we returned, we resumed our weekend visits to Bumble. Ces continued to drop in for a cup of tea, a piece of cake and a chat, and told us he was very pleased with the outcome of the documentary. Over this period of time he spoke a great deal about his past. We were saddened at the harshness of his upbringing in Manchester in an environment dominated by poverty, crime and alcoholism; especially having such a violent and cruel father. Thi4 crippled child had grown into a gutsy gang leader who led a rough, exciting and adventurous life in and out of prison. He was driving trucks as a young teenager, an adept thief, frequented brothels at 14 years of age, entered the army under-age and spent years escaping from both the military and the regular police who were always pursuing him for various misdemeanours. In adulthood, his criminal escapades involved an escalation of violence. Punishment was more severe and he ended up in Dartmoor. Later, he narrowly escaped being incarcerated for life in a mental institution. His many failed relationships with women showed a possessive and destructive side which he quite openly admitted.

  It was clear that Ces had made a profoundly negative impact on many people back in the UK but he had come to his senses and made a clean break from those influences that were dragging him down—his description not mine. He decided to raise his family in a healthy Australian environment and apply all the wisdom he had gained over the years to enrich their lives. Ces and his sons were progressing towards their goal of three champion-of-the-world boxing titles. Ces and Christine were achieving wonders on the racetrack and at dressage events as well. Ces’s own need for fame and publicity did not escape me but I felt he deserved it. I was very proud to be associated with him and to be considered his friend.

  As Ces had led such a fascinating life, I offered to write his biography. I had majored in psychology back at uni and his mind and behaviour fascinated me. Ces was delighted with this as he loved any sort of public attention. This suited me too as I was home-bound in my heavily pregnant state and, being naive about the hard work motherhood entailed, felt I would have spare time on my hands to devote to a new and interesting task. There was no hurry in getting the biography completed (his sons had not yet achieved their ultimate goal) and so I knew I could slowly compile it over the coming years. In the meantime, I was fortunate to get a job (paying a pittance though) giving coverage on Australian scripts for a large international film production company. I also edited the scripts John was writing, and we worked together backing up our own film proposals to production companies around the world. At this stage John and I were very enthusiastic that we were on the edge of exciting film careers.

  Ces came over most weekends we were up at Bumble. We spent hours together in dictation, carefully working through all the intimate details of his life. While we sat on the verandah overlooking the tranquil view of the valley, I’d ask him questions and he’d talk straight into my dictaphone. When I returned to our city home at Chatswood after the weekend, I’d type up my notes and try to place them in chronological order. It was a surprisingly laborious task as Ces had a habit of repeating himself. When I read his words on the computer, they didn’t always make much sense. And yet when Ces had been talking to me, enthused with his story-telling and gesturing dramatically with his strong wide hands, the meaning had been crystal clear. That was one of Ces’s great talents, story-telling. Perhaps one of my talents was in getting him to talk about everything, and recording it precisely as he meant it, only without the repetitions and distracted mind-wanderings. At that time I added nothing because I believed in what I was doing and wanted every detail to accurately reflect Ces’s extraordinary world.

  John would often sit with us listening to Ces’s exploits and there was much laughter and enjoyment in those early days of gleaning information. There was also a lot of caring .and deep-felt emotions from us. Ces had a terrible start in life and it’s a miracle he survived. His early problems were laid out for him before he was born. Many events would have been painful to recall.

  But recall them, he did …

  2 Muddy Waters

  Moody river, more deadly

  Than the darkest night.

  Moody river, your muddy waters

  Took my baby’s life

  de Rose, Richman & Trent, ‘Muddy Waters’

  My dad, John Waters, was the rootstock from which my rebelliousness stemmed. He had an unhappy childhood. He inherited dark features and a restless temperament from his part Ute Indian, part negro American father, who deserted Ada, his English mother, after years of marriage and returned to the US, leaving Ada to raise her five children singlehanded in Lancashire. Granny Ada had a devil of a job controlling John and eventually had to tell him, at 14, to leave home. He dabbled in the mechanic’s trade and was once a motorbike stunt rider known as Muddy Waters, but gave it up when a friend borrowed his bike and was killed in a road accident. He turned to cars and became chauffeur to Mrs Gilbert. Mrs Gilbert, a wealthy gypsy who lived with her husband in a large glazed-brick flat in Ancoats, Manchester, bought horses in Ireland and broke and sold them at a profit locally. Also, she managed a linoleum shop with the help of her daughter Nancy. Mrs Gilbert passed her Gypsy heritage to Nancy, who grew up in the Romany tongue. Nancy, her husband John Joseph Monaghan and their seven children lived in a nearby flat. John Joseph was a pensioned-off soldier who’d sit around smoking a pipe and drinking. When his blood alcohol level rose he became violent and aggressive. He knew the name of every pub in Manchester.

  John Waters in his late twenties was short but good looking, with intense dark eyes full of sparkle and sexuality, good teeth, black hair and a deep olive complexion, and he had a mischievous smile.

  Nancy was in her late thirties, a striking woman with long black hair. During one of Mrs Gilbert’s parties Nancy got rather inebriated and succumbed to the Waters’ charm, sparking me into being. An intense relations
hip developed with the lively amorous man and when she discovered she was pregnant she told John Joseph she was leaving him and moving in with dad, plunging the Monaghan family into turmoil. John Joseph appealed to Granny Gilbert, who promptly sacked the troublesome chauffeur and threatened to cut Nancy from the family fortune. But Nancy was determined to escape her violent unhappy marriage and stood her ground.

  In the early part of the nineteenth century Manchester had industrialised rapidly with the growth of the cotton industry. An exploding population, poor town planning, shoddy workmanship and lack of hygiene meant 26 000 houses fell below safety standards and should’ve been pulled down. Some fell of their own accord. The Irwell River, which crawled with salmon before the mills poured their filth into it, was a thick sludge of oily chemicals, stagnant and vile-smelling. This was the environment Nancy faced for denying Mrs Gilbert.

  Manchester produced tough outspoken women and Nancy was no exception, but nor was Granny Gilbert. When Nancy left she was disinherited and five of her seven children—Tony was in jail and Bill had moved out, leaving Mary, Jane, Diana, Nancy and John—remained with the older woman.

  My parents never married. They rented a room in a disused pub in Ancoats. Nancy realised she’d left one violent alcoholic for another. A week before I was born, dad punched her in the stomach and left her face puffy and bruised, eyes black and lips cut. She was proud and loyal to dad, and told visitors she’d fallen down the stairs, but Mary, her eldest daughter, was not fooled when she attended mum in labour. Mary was in her early twenties and had a four-month-old baby called Laurence.

  On 20 December 1926 I was pulled screaming into the world, family myth had it, with thick lips and a swollen face from the whack I got in utero. ‘It’s a nigger,’ said Mary maliciously, aware dad was quarter-cast negro. He was down at the pub, staying clear.

  Within a few weeks poverty forced my parents to a worse slum. Dilapidated houses with large families in them lined the street. Gutters were always choked with paper, wrappings, packets and junk, attracting rats. The smell of pollution competed with the aroma of fish, beer and baking bread. Fog hung thick and sooty when the chimneys belched smoke and all buildings were blackened. It was unhealthy, ugly and noisy. The hooters of the cotton mill next door and others echoed in the streets, apprentices and mechanics banged away endlessly, sirens wailed and on Sundays awful clanging churchbells would wake and frighten me.

  The textile industry suffered a great downturn in the 1920s when Japan and India increased production about when Lancashire mill machinery became obsolete. This worsened in 1929 when the Depression hit. The unemployed stood on street corners, idle and degraded.

  Horses were the main means of transporting goods. Directly across Chapel Street from where we lived was the busy local pub and further along were the railway stables and yards. I’d watch the strong heavy horses in these yards pulling railway carts. I was also fascinated to observe the magnificent shire horses, glossy with perspiration and snorting from exertion, heaving immense loads of grey cloth from the mills to the warehouses. Milkcarts were pulled by horses. With steaming nostrils, they’d wait patiently as the early morning milkman scooped thick creamy milk out of a large churn. In the morning when I opened my front door, the smell that would first assault my senses would be from fresh horse manure lying on the road.

  During the day fast-trotting horses were often seen on the roads. Their carts, precariously balanced between large-spoked wheels, were loaded with bundles of newspapers such as the Manchester Evening News or the Evening Chronicle. These were being delivered from the railway station to newsagents’ stands on the street corners. The horses never slowed their pace when approaching the vendors and the bundles would be flung off the carts at high speed. I felt pride when I saw these lovely animals because I knew that the printing company was the biggest buyer of Granny Gilbert’s horses.

  My early impression of mother was of a vociferous, strong-willed woman. When provoked, she had one heck of a temper and could swear like a trooper. She proclaimed her heritage by wearing a silk kingsman scarf tied in a knot around her neck which represented some kind of Gypsy insignia. She also wore a half sovereign on the end of a chain, and matching earrings glinted between strands of long black hair.

  Granny Gilbert had influenced my mother with many Gypsy superstitions and customs. Mum always felt obliged to respect them, just in case. We soon learned that it was bad luck if anybody put a shoe on a table or if two knives were accidently crossed. If mum passed a cross-eyed person in the street she wouldn’t do any business that day. Cross eyes were bad omens.

  Mum’s attractive face resembled an older version of the actress Deborah Kerr. Her most beautiful features, apart from her thick black hair, were her grey-green eyes filled with compassion and kindness. If anyone was singing in the street, she’d give them a coin. When I needed her she’d sit me on her knee and nurse me. Her dark skirts always carried a strong aroma of gravy and soup. I’d bury my head in her blouse or skirt and clutch her tight in moments of danger, such as when my father came home drunk. If he couldn’t get in through the door, he’d yell out, ‘Nancy! Open this damn door! Nancy, I’m warning you, open this door!’ Bang, bang, bang; in would smash the door and in would come my father.

  Dad was semi-employed, doing odd jobs like delivering cars to dealers. He cheated by drawing payment from National Assistance. Altogether, dad bought in a reasonable income and we could have lived comfortably if he hadn’t drank most of it. We often went hungry. He came back evenings, face grim, burning for conflict. He’d break things, shout abuse and order mum and me about. When he threatened her, she’d ask, ‘Whose bucket are you going to stand on?’ to rile the short man. When the abuse escalated, I’d hide in cupboards or behind the couch. Dad’s arm tattoos of an Indian chief and a squaw would fly. A fist would whack mum. She’d gamely punch back or arm herself with a ladle or rolling pin, or they’d end up on the floor like rugby forwards. His fury spent, dad would grab his coat and go to the pub, mum’s insults trailing after him. He’d kick and punch me too. Once I was lifted and slammed against the wall by his boot, and mum picked me up and told him we were leaving. He said he’d go instead, but he charmed his way back a few days later as usual. There was no birth control and mum had two unwanted stillborn sons before becoming pregnant with her eleventh child.

  Perhaps in search of a distraction so that she could get some rest, mum arranged for me to play with the children of relatives, such as cousin Laurence, my half-sister Mary’s son, who was slightly older than me. Although Mary was poor, she always made sure Laurence was immaculately dressed when he came to play. Similarly, mum would put me in my Sunday best which was black velvet pants with pearl buttons. Granny Gilbert generously bought a little red pedal car for me and a blue one for Laurence.

  Granny Gilbert had a cousin Nanny who was married to an alcoholic called Richard Burnside. They had a daughter, Gracie, with whom I played while our mums drank tea. Her father was drying out after a binge when he awoke to find millions of spear-wielding devils coming at him and became hysterical. He tossed Gracie through an upstairs window and tried to do the same to his other two children, but they escaped. Gracie died of a fractured skull. Granny Gilbert believed his explanation—that he’d mistaken Gracie for a devil—and supplied a barrister who convinced the jury Burnside was temporarily insane. He was sent to the criminal lunatic asylum at Broadmoor for a 27-year stretch. My shrewd grandmother always took a present like a carpet for the superintendent when she visited, and he was out in seven. But I couldn’t comprehend my playmate’s death. I’d wander outside and sit on our front doorstep, my eyes darting between the horse-drawn carts, occasional motor cars, pub patrons, neighbours, mill-workers and aimless groups of unemployed, all contributing to the kaleidoscope of colour and noise.

  Once a week, mum would take me by tram to the large Minshell Street Courthouse. There she collected food parcels and an allowance for me, her illegitimate child. I hated going. We’d have t
o wait for ages in the long crowded corridor outside the courtrooms. Eventually, a man would shout, ‘Bastardy cases this way.’ It wasn’t until I grew older that the word ‘bastard’ began to have a sting to it.

  After a session at the courthouse, my pregnant mum scooped me into her arms and waddled across the cobbled road to the Minshell Street canal on the other side. These long canals linked Manchester to Liverpool so that the cotton-laden ships could bring their cargo directly to the mills. However, mum’s thoughts were on other things as she stared wistfully into the muddy water. I was distracted by the sight of a horse pulling a barge up the canal towards us. The bargee was walking along the pathway next to the canal, controlling the horse’s movements. I was so fascinated by this beautiful strong animal that I remained totally oblivious to the torment overwhelming my mum. She clutched me close to her warm chest, her eyes glistening and her lips tightly clenched.

  Then she jumped. It was so unexpected. I can still recall an impression of greeny-black water, then a sharp curtain swiping across my vision, plunging me into a dark cold suffocating wetness from which I couldn’t escape. I was entangled in long black hair, slippery arms and legs, bumping against her rounded belly and being wrapped and slapped by her billowing skirt.

  3 Opinion, Prejudice and Portents

  You’ve got to establish who’s the boss

  with a child from Day One.

  Ces Waters

  Mother’s Day 1985 was a busy one. I endured 12 hours of exhausting labour at the Royal Women’s Hospital in inner-Sydney Paddington, but the boy’s large head refused to budge. I just wanted everybody—staff, students, John, baby—to go away. A week earlier John had read and empathised with an article about French childbirth techniques that argued the modern western method of lying flat in bed was counterproductive and gravity could assist childbirth. He decided to get in on the act. Gownless, maskless, with his shoes on, he climbed on the bed, placed a foot either side of my head, grabbed me under the arms and heaved me into the air, astonishing the audience. With John’s knee pushing the centre of my back, Dean Meagher came into the world.