by Paul Daley
With his girth, comb-over and blotchy complexion, he’s never going to win a beauty contest. So how’s that—lecturing me about my appearance? This shitbag’s got more front than the Myer Christmas windows.
His eyes register my left hand shaking involuntarily and I know he’s thinking, God—Dear God—please let it be that Jase is framing him widely enough to capture it.
I shift my right hand into my left and clench it to stop the tremor.
Grimes says that according to Domenica’s mum, Caitlyn Mahony, I came home drunk from a football club function and threw her daughter against the wall so hard that the back of her head took a chunk from the plaster.
The neighbours then called the police, he says—the Victoria Police has confirmed to me that a car attended your address in Richmond and that you had to be restrained in handcuffs.
Grimes—making me stew with assertion after assertion—is in no hurry to get to a question. He claims my political enemies are saying that what happened that night almost twenty years ago, at the end of my football career, just as I was contemplating entering politics, should rule me out for high office on temperament and character grounds.
It’s an old tactic this—throwing up the straw man of people are saying this about you, what have you got to say in response?
He wants hot-headed me to go impulsively front foot and demand, Well who, precisely, Antony, is saying these things—name the critics, which would just make me look even more bonkers.
But I won’t rise to it. Instead, I remain perfectly passive, forcing Grimes to ask the direct question: Mr Slattery—would you like to tell us, in your own words, why you have decided to talk about what happened that evening?
I am looking straight down the barrel of the camera, saying: Antony,
I’ve already told you why I’ve decided to talk about this now. It’s because you forced my hand. You discovered a single anecdote and extrapolated from it that what happened should rule me out of becoming prime minister on character grounds. If I stay silent, your version of what happened will be accepted by other journalists and voters as the truth. That would be very damaging for me and my party. So I am here to tell you the truth. That is why I’ve decided to talk to you about what happened. I have no choice. So, would you like me to tell you what happened?
Grimes is perturbed. He likes to be in command of every interview and here I am, signalling that I might just take this anywhere. I’ve planted in him a seed of doubt that he may not actually know the gospel truth and might not like it when I deliver it.
Sitting close to him reminds me of just how hideously obese he is. His vast stomach sloops down over his thighs, its edge resting somewhere about his knees. The buttons on his drum-tight shirt look set to pop (he must have them tailored; enough material there for a two-man tent).
Grimes’s weary, squinty raccoon eyes narrow slightly as he responds with an emphatic, Yes, Mr Slattery, why don’t you get on and tell us exactly what happened?
Okay. For starters, Antony, let me just say that I live with deep regret and sadness about what happened. I never contemplated that when I entered politics that I’d have to do what I am doing here tonight and address a private tragedy in this way. But I’m doing it because I believe that I have enemies who are trying to destroy me because the Opposition, under my leadership, stands a very strong chance of winning the next election. And I believe that the country is crying out for a change of government and I am the best person to lead the country to that change. I am speaking about this tonight reluctantly, Antony, because my enemies—inside and outside the parliament, in the government and in my party—are cruelly contorting a terrible, deep sadness in my past to suit their political ends.
Grimes, unsure how to regain control here, nods, says, Go on, please.
If sordid detail is what Grimes wants then I’ll bury the fat fuck in it. That way the punters will hold Grimes responsible for forcing me—blackmailing me—into revealing the intimate minutiae of a haunting personal catastrophe.
Eddie is covering her mouth with one hand. She has wrapped the other arm around her stomach. I wonder, will she vomit?
And so I start at the beginning, with an explanation of how I didn’t know that Domenica was ill when we first met—not even when we married.
She was a physio for the club—outgoing, vibrant, beautiful, smart enough.
In my mind I still hold a picture of the day we married: her in a purple gown, beaming, as we walked hand in hand from the church, me ten kilos lighter, in an Armani suit and a Zegna tie. Joyful, unselfconscious smiles all around and rock star Father Tom and all the boys from the team in the background.
She fell pregnant on the honeymoon. Only then, when we went for the first prenatal checkup, did she tell me about the lithium she’d been prescribed since she was a teenager.
The doctor warned us about the danger of teratogens to the foetus in the first trimester. So Domenica went cold turkey, refused any other medication that might have kept her on the rails. Paranoia about the baby’s health consumed her. She refused to go outside, ate nothing but oranges and spinach, lost weight and obsessed about germs. One day while drinking tea with her in the kitchen, I counted as she walked to the sink and washed her hands twenty-seven times—once after every time she raised the cup to her mouth.
It was my last year at the club. I was thirty-three, captain, and it was our best chance of a premiership in decades. My last shot. Between training and the punishment of match days, I was running cases for McQuoid, Dethridge & Partners, going to branch meetings and trying to deal with everything at home.
I took a fortnight off work when we lost the baby. Domenica, inconsolable, wouldn’t let me out of her sight. She wandered the house at night—all night, every damned night—crying. Woke me, kept me awake with demands about whether I was going to trade her in for a sane wife who could bear children.
I insisted I still loved her, which I did. But she did make it bloody difficult with her refusal to go back on the meds. She started smoking in the house—I hate smoking—wouldn’t return to work. But still I trained and played—had to—in the lead-up to the finals. I still don’t know how I made it through.
The day we won I stood on the podium in the middle of the G, the club confetti swirling around me, and as I held the cup aloft for the crowd and the cameras I burst into tears. Not winner’s tears, but tears of sorrow—sorrow that only now, with the Grand Final achieved, could I truly indulge lament for my lost child and the wife who’d tuned into a psychotic stranger. Nobody ever worries about the father when a child is miscarried.
Mad Monday then turned into Mad October. I partied with the team for weeks, staying away and compounding Domenica’s paranoia, feeding the madness. On the rare occasions I did return home the house was a shambles. She was beside herself, delusional and ranting, alleging I’d been sleeping around—which, improbably I’ll admit, I hadn’t. Yet.
I finally convinced her to return to the doctor. But the meds didn’t work the way they once had. So they tried other drug combos. One day she’d be good as gold, the next, paranoid, angry, borderline suicidal. We managed to patch it for a bit. In a manner. I went to work every day and came home to her. She spent her days going through my stuff, seeking evidence of the affairs she was convinced I was having—even followed me and spied on me outside the office. She swore at Mum and my mates when they called.
I was in a weird place, too. I’d been connected to the club since I was eighteen. And suddenly I was out. Gone. Finished. I felt isolated, lost, distracted. I know now what I didn’t then—that I was actually grieving for my future—the lost life ahead of me with no more football, a bug-shit crazy wife and more than likely no kids.
Of course I confided in Tom. I’ve always confided everything in Tom. He’d married us and he reckoned he had a stake in our marriage. I’ll never forget his advice. He said that the best thing about our church was that families always stayed together, through thick and thin.
He sai
d don’t divorce—Danny, it’s your duty to look after her. But run another life within your life. That’s the secret to a successful emotional life within traditional marriage, Danny—compartments. Compartmentalise your life. But always be discreet and don’t hurt her. Never embarrass her or make her feel ashamed or humiliated. It’s the way Dad has run it with Mum and it works.
Today the absurdity of me accepting Tom’s advice on this seems profound. The guy had had plenty of experience with women, all right. But he knew nothing about intimacy at all, let alone the trials of marriage—of actually sharing yourself and sharing everything with someone else. Tom has never shared a thing in his life.
Even had he not entered the priesthood, I doubt that he could ever have shared himself properly with one woman. I’m happy to leave this to the amateur shrinks, but for what it’s worth I suspect that this was learned behaviour; he watched his parents perform their pantomime marriage—Paddy doing politics and a string of much younger women on the side, completely isolated in reality from Kate, who raised the kids, unfalteringly supported his career and stoically ignored the whispers.
Unlike Tom I craved intimacy. Not just sex. Intimacy. I wanted what Mum never had. I wanted to be loved and to love. To share. To open myself up to the woman I was with. The amateurs say that blokes want to marry their mums. Well it’s bullshit, in my case anyway. I couldn’t wait to get away from Bev’s smothering, milky, wet-kiss love. I wanted the firm hand of guidance in marriage—a woman who could reinforce my self-worth, boost my confidence with honest reassurance, correct my path when I strayed.
I wanted a wife who would fill the empty khakis hanging, draped in a dry-cleaner’s plastic sheath, at the end of Mum’s cupboard. I wanted a wife who would be my father—not my mother. And so when Domenica failed me so fucking miserably, I felt I had no choice but to deliberately fail her.
Yes, it happened. I started a relationship with Bridgette—Bridie— one of the legal secretaries. I wasn’t serious, although I let her think I was so that the sex—which was good—and the affection, continued. I did little to hide it at home, a misery that I did my best to no longer attend. The consequence was, predictably, disastrous.
I came home later than usual one evening, smelling of booze and mistress. From the street I could smell burning. Then I saw the smoke billowing in waves from the bathroom window and hanging in sheets in the still, moist summer air. Using two-stroke fuel and club memorabilia—framed jumpers and photographs, trophies, the premiership ball for fuck’s sake!—Domenica had started a bonfire in the bathtub. I came inside to find her wild-eyed, drunk and shaking with rage as she systematically fed my suits and shoes to the flames.
She was screaming that I was an unfeeling prick and that I’d ruined her life because I wouldn’t let her have my baby.
All you want to do is drug me and lock me up, she screamed.
Then, adding assault to insult, when I bent down to turn on the bath tap to douse the flames, she picked up a half-full can of mower fuel by the handle and belted me over the head with it. I was seeing stars and I crashed down onto the tiles where I lay for a bit watching, through the open door, as she walked down the hallway to the lounge.
The flames died to a smouldering mush of ash, smashed glass, half-burnt frames and clothing. I tried to retrieve the ball, but the heat exploded the bladder with such force that my eyes stung and my ears started ringing.
Eventually, I followed Domenica into the lounge where she took another swing at me with the can. I recoiled too slowly and the bottom of the can caught me on the brow and tore the skin. I stepped back, put my hand to my face to inspect the blood, and I breathed in and out deeply because I knew I was going to lose it and I did not want to punch her.
Then she held up in her left hand a stamped envelope addressed to her. I went cold.
Your girlfriend, she said, has written me a letter to say there’s no room in this relationship for three and I should get out.
I called her bluff, said, Bullshit, you’re imagining things.
She’s even signed it, Domenica screamed—Bridgette Molloy.
Bridie knew nothing of Domenica’s illness—only that the marriage was a train wreck. I couldn’t believe she’d be stupid enough to write to Domenica.
Brandishing the envelope in front of my face, she said: Proof, you prick—proof that I’m not insane.
Then she struck me again, this time with her fists, hard against my chest. And I really did fucking lose it this time. I grabbed her arms and pushed her into the wall—hard. Harder than I needed to or should have. The crack of her head against the wall coincided with a knock on the front door.
Police. Open up, the woman’s voice on the doorstep said, and I was thinking, Oh, Jesus, fuck me harder, you have got to be kidding.
I opened the door to two police officers in body armour, their pistols drawn.
Of course I realised straight up just how bad it looked. If it was one of my deadbeat clients I’d have advised them to cop a plea up front.
Anyway, the girl cop said, Keep your hands where I can see them, then they pushed me inside, made me lie facedown on the carpet, cuffed me.
Where’s the gun? the man copper demanded.
You’re fucking kidding, I answered. I hate guns—I don’t have one.
But there was a gunshot, he said.
It was a ball exploding. My wife is burning my footballs in the bathtub.
The bloke cop laughed (I wanted to say, What’s so funny, cunt? but thought better of it) then went to look, while the policewoman consoled Domenica, who was rubbing the back of her head and complaining about how viciously I’d thrown her against the wall.
It was quickly apparent to the cops that no one had shot at anyone. Domenica asked them to telephone Caitlyn, explain what’d happened, while she kept carrying on to the coppers about me having affairs and about losing the baby, and about how she loved me and wanted me to stay so we could try again. What a shambles.
The cops suggested we cool off for a day or two. Okay, I said—I’ll go to a hotel. So I left, thinking my legal career was over and that any remote chance I might have had of getting into parliament was finished. I was amazed when none of this made the papers in the next few days—you know, imagine the headline: ‘Police raid home of footy star/lawyer/aspiring politician/adopted son of the party glitterati amid domestic violence and suspected gunshot shark-attack mayhem’. That’s a story, right?
Tom told me a few months later when it had all calmed down a bit that Paddy and Vince had worked their magic on it, calling in favours with the police and various editors.
I’ve been waiting for it to hit the press ever since. And now it’s coming to pass, as karma or Zen or whatever turns viciously to bite me on the arse.
I was incredibly stupid, naive, to think it would never catch up with me—especially as Domenica’s mother vowed at the funeral that she’d hound me with it until I died.
Thinking about it now makes me bilious—the way her family closed ranks in the church, sat on one side of the aisle, wouldn’t let me near them or the coffin. Sneered at my mum, my friends who were supporting me. Refused to let Tom do the service.
I was sure Caitlyn would shoot her mouth off straight away. When it didn’t come up during preselection, I thought—or at least feared—that it would during a campaign. But it didn’t. It was always just referred to obliquely as the tragedy in my bottom drawer, the thing that not even my enemies considered would be fair game to talk about or use against me.
That sort of human baggage has always been kind of off-limits to the enemies and the press. But that old compact of MAD—Mutually Assured Destruction—has gone by the wayside of late as the Twitter-obsessed reptiles race to be first with the latest filthy click-bait. Unfortunately, I’m the case in point.
I never actively covered up anything about my life with Domenica.
Parliament abides by a curious, grotesquely contorted set of There But for the Grace of God morals, like that. You know
—you can be a shithouse father, your kids all supporting smack habits by selling their arses because you’ve never been around, you can be a useless, even abusive, husband, be rooting your staffer and doing the good old Mandingo with the PM’s spaniel, and nobody’ll say a fucking word because of stones and glass houses.
But if you rort your TA while you’re doing it, use a taxpayer-funded Cabcharge or a Comcar to go to the knock shop, then you’re rooted. Yes, thank you—we have our own definitions of decency and morality around here and we, not you, will arbitrate on when the standard is double and when the line has been crossed.
Unless of course you happen to be Antony Grimes, self-appointed arbiter of public/political morality, and you decide one day that it all should be out there.
Even though everyone’s heard the rumours or the truth, I’ve never been asked about my first wife’s death. Except by Eddie. I’d told her most of the details. Except the bit about my rooting around beforehand. And the bit about the fight and the cops coming. Besides that, she knew it all.
29
So I’ve told Grimes pretty much the whole story. I’ve avoided pauses that might have allowed him to throw in additional questions. My tone has been even. I have deliberately avoided seeming too selfassured; self-doubt is the politician’s enemy—except when the politician is talking about the suicide of his ex-wife for which he is largely responsible.
Towards the end I pause for a moment, wipe a tear from my eye. Grimes, aware that I’ve made him surplus to requirement, wants to reinsert himself to the story, says: So, you think Domenica’s mother is running a vendetta …
I interrupt, cut him off short, give the interview I want to give, say straight to the camera, I realise now that I was not the most attentive husband to Domenica, especially given all of my other sporting and work commitments at the time. But I thought I was doing my best to care for her. I loved her, despite her illness. I would never, ever have intentionally hurt her. I pushed her against the wall, as I said, because she was striking me. I was just protecting myself. And yes, I’d done things that had hurt her. We grew apart after the … baby. I regret that. But I can’t change it. I left that night the police came. And I stayed away.
