Girl on the Edge

by Kim Hodges

  At twenty-six years of age I met Mark and we fell in love. He was born in Scotland, but grew up in Sydney. We both loved socialising, dancing, culture and the arts. We consumed Sydney life. He differed greatly from the townie lads I had grown up with. Our politics, backgrounds and schooling were completely opposite, but somehow we met in the middle and found common territory to grow our relationship.

  I had set myself a new personal challenge, long before I met Mark, to visit Nepal and India and face the extremities of poverty. With the plans and itinerary mapped out, I landed in Nepal on my own and met a female friend a month later in India. Mark was not ready for such a trip. We separated on my departure, to free one another; that was easier. I rationalised that if the relationship was meant to be, it would resume on my return. We did resume our relationship, cautiously, then and many others times. The next few years were turbulent for us—on and off, then on again.

  I read up on the politics, history, and religious divisions of India prior to travelling there. I travelled in Nepal for one month, India for two months and then Thailand for another month. My intellect was alive and all of my senses were on high alert. I loved the complexity, culture, colours and contradictions that India presented to me. I desperately tried to make sense of the caste system and gender divisions that confronted me. As the writer VS Naipaul said: “One must look beyond the poverty to see the richness of India.” India was everything; beautiful, confronting, cruel and despicable, all within a few moments. I returned to Australia stunned and very unsettled by my travel experiences. I also accepted that I simply could not make sense of many things.

  *

  I enrolled in a postgraduate Master’s degree at Wollongong University and obtained a distinction average. I finally realised that I had a brain that worked very well and that I was entitled to do postgraduate studies. After three years at the Campbelltown Community Health Centre, I moved into doing policy work for the State Government’s Department of Housing and Department of Women. I wanted to contribute to more systematic social change. Writing letters and responding to ministerial directives and reports all proved to be a bit too bureaucratic. As a policy worker I was below the senior policy officers, directors and ministers in a new hierarchy.

  I had cemented my career, travelled, and I became inquisitive about the idea of motherhood. To have children replaced other ambitions in my life. At thirty-one years of age Mark and I formalised our relationship with marriage. Two years later, we left our busy Sydney lives behind and travelled to Thailand and India for a month before arriving in Scotland with me pregnant. We visited the community of Dharamsala that sat perched high up in the Himalayas, the home to Tibetan exiles. As the Dalai Lama was in residence at the monastery, the narrow streets were often filled with flowing seas of orange and purple robes: monks. There were too, a handful of western onlookers like us. Feeling and sensing the spirituality, kindness and calmness that Buddhism exuded, I soaked it up, respected and admired it, but chose not to convert.

  As Mark had been born in Scotland I was entitled to live there. I gave birth to our first son in Edinburgh. We returned to Australia when I was pregnant with our second son. Pregnancy agreed with me. I loved my roundness, womanly curves and inflated breasts. After returning to Sydney we lived on the north side for two years. Mark had been adamant about living there. I agreed, but with great trepidation. My third son was born. I loathed the middle class suburban values that surrounded our new home. I had to travel on a six-lane highway to buy milk and bread, with three children. Mark’s failed business, a massive mortgage and three boys under four years of age nearly broke me. Also my social conscience kicked in again and I had to get our family out of Sydney. We managed to relocate with our three sons under five years of age to the north coast of New South Wales. The quiet streets of Sawtell were in walking distance to a local beach. Seeing children play in the street and locals riding bicycles around town was a relief. House prices and home renovation were priorities for the residents in my Sydney suburb, but conversation about them bored me senseless. We left Sydney, and the-middle class suburban values that I despised, behind for good. Having had three boys in quick succession, due to delays in conceiving our first baby, was very challenging, but our clan had been created and we survived as parents, if only just at times.

  *

  My grandmother on my mother’s side, in her late seventies, resigned from cleaning. She continued to walk everywhere, play golf and to grow her own vegetables. While old age had diminished her agility, her hawk eyes had never been affected. She watched the comings and goings from her seat on the veranda of her home. At eighty-four years of age her health suddenly declined. She died in her sleep, just before her eighty-fifth birthday. I was thirty-five years of age and the eldest grandchild, so I gave a speech at her funeral. As her stoic and harsh nature was not hidden at all, her tongue unrelenting and without tenderness or softness, I found other ways to celebrate her life. I said that she had showed her love for all of us in the food that she cooked, her chocolate jar, and the cleanliness of the home, into which every relative had always been welcomed.

  Although I loved motherhood and my new life away from Sydney, the highlight of my day could never be going to the supermarket and washing floors. I applied to be a casual tutor at Southern Cross University, in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. I worked as both a casual and contractor tutor and lecturer in this faculty for nine years. I loved working with students; particularly students who initially struggled, but with my guidance whose confidence and academic ability grew. As for over-confident students, I took pleasure in challenging their sense of entitlement and locating its cause. I shared my failed HSC result and Mr Johnston’s discouraging words with all my students, but nothing else from my personal life.

  I proved Mr Johnston wrong again. Educators with low expectations of certain students, based on their background and circumstances, are simply wrong.

  *

  Three years later my father’s half-sister, Rodney’s mother, died of a sudden heart attack. Two of the three sons were contactable, but Rodney was impossible to trace. None of the sons, or my father was willing to bury her. She had a pauper’s funeral provided by the state due to insufficient funds in her estate to cover the funeral costs. They are otherwise known as the “unwanted dead.” I am left wondering if Rodney is in or out of jail, alive or dead, even straight or gay. And I wonder about what sort of life he’s led. But mostly, I wonder if coming to stay a week with my family would have affected his life journey. I suspect that it might have, but perhaps I am full of hope.

  “Who were the fathers of the three boys?” I asked my mother on the phone.

  “Your half-cousins’ father shot through—good thing—as he was apparently very violent. Well, he was the father of the first two boys. Rodney had a different father. No-one knows who he is. Stanice probably didn’t even know herself.” My mother’s moralising tone continued to ring in my ears for a long time.

  *

  Twenty years have passed since I last visited Coolah. I returned because the twins invited me to a touch football reunion held every two years—the first and only one I would ever attend. I ate out and drank myself silly with them and all their Coolah friends, who came for the weekend sporting event. I phoned Genevieve and she insisted that I stay with William and her. They lived in a beautiful grazier’s home with matching everything and Genevieve welcomed me with open arms, an open heart and a smiling face, just as she would have in primary school. Over wine that evening, she relived her own experience of attending boarding school. She told me that tears had rolled down her cheeks as the inevitable moment on departure day had arrived. Her parents’ told her a white lie—”all will be fine,” but they were upset too. Her own memories of homesickness and harshness have faded, but have never been forgotten. I sometimes think the family tradition and the importance of a quality education, for the graziers, suppressed the emotional memories of their schooling. Genevieve is convinced that boarding scho
ol has improved considerably: Four school terms not three; two mid-term visits by parents; and day outings are permitted. Corporal punishment has ceased. Mobile phones are allowed. Better—much better. But her own aching heart never forgets as she recalls counting down the days until her parents visited. She remembers hiding her face under her sheets and blankets in the darkness of the dormitory bed, as uncontrollable tears flowed threatening to flood the entire bed and boarding house. Experienced boarders, who had overcome their homesickness, would often taunt the newcomers, “Who was the sook last night? I could hear you blubbering.” Newcomers quickly learnt the art of masking and denial for self-preservation. Even so, Genevieve sent her sons to boarding school in Bathurst when they reached year seven. I can now appreciate the heartache of a parent deciding when and where a child should go to boarding school—or if they should go to boarding school at all.

  *

  I stood outside the house in Oban Street on that visit and noticed that the silos in the distance—the neighbourhood houses were exactly the same as they had been in my teenage years. The gutter caught my eye. I saw myself, as that eight year old child, floating leaves in the water and waiting for the arrival of the two trucks. Other memories, when I was older, of riding my bike over the gutter, and stepping over it in despair, I deliberately pushed away. The arrival of our house on two trucks was the memory I held onto, as I got in my car and drove back home to north coast and to my family.

  *

  I had always thought that blue bloods and red bloods were worlds’ apart and viewed life through different lens from one another. Townies were apples and graziers were oranges, or vice versa. As the differences were so great, there was no point in trying to locate commonalities. Like Untouchables and Brahmins from the Hindu culture, as an analogy, these castes may never cross over in a lifetime. However as I drove toward the coast, and thought about my recent visit, my usual polarised view of the townies and graziers was challenged—I was able to locate similarities between us. We are all human beings, with a heart, a soul and a brain. We all have the right to live peacefully. We all breathe the same oxygen; we all need to eat and sleep. We all take a certain number of breaths in our lifetime. Some people take a few more breaths than others; and some may be more laboured, due to illness or misfortune. Some people breathe freely throughout their entire lives—but we all breathe, and we all eventually die. People are people. No-one soul is better than another.

  chapter twenty-seven

  RECONCILIATIONS AND REFLECTIONS

  I am in my late-forties now. Recently, my father had his seventieth birthday. He is older and wiser and probably has realised that there is no need to hide. His self-protective shield was not made of metal anymore and I noticed some cracks. He has mellowed; he is now more considerate, caring and softer, as opposed to the hardness and sternness that I vividly remember growing up. One day, he arrived at my home unannounced with a folder. We sat, and sipped coffee together. In the folder was a black and white photograph of him as a baby, in his mother’s arms.

  “This is the only photo I have of her holding me. I want you to have it,” he said.

  “Thank you—I’ll take care of it and frame it,” I replied. It was beautiful, both of them smiling, dressed in their Sunday-best outfits. I flicked through the folder and I saw some photocopies and letters. I looked at him unsure.

  “As you ask the most questions, I want you to have these. This is the birth certificate of my mother. These are the death certificates of my grandmother and my mother,” he said. I felt like more pieces of the jigsaw had found their place.

  “I want you to know that in my twenties, I was told that two of my aunties were dead—but they were alive, locked up in mental institutions for years, with schizophrenia, and never released. I found out by accident. Both are dead now, though. I wrote these letters to the hospitals shortly after my fiftieth birthday, trying to discover what became of them. I had been lied to for all those years. These are the letters I wrote to find out about my aunties. I also made enquiries about my mother’s and grandmother’s stints in mental hospitals. They all had it. The replies from the hospitals are there too. I tried to make sense of it, but I just couldn’t. These are now yours,” he said, closing the cover as he handed me the folder.

  “Thank you,” I said, aware of the sensitivity of this matter to him.

  “Don’t tell your mother. You know what she is likely to say,” he asked of me. I nodded.

  I could sense his vulnerability and fragility as he sat before me. This was closure for him. Whatever remained unsaid was his. The time had arrived for me to stop asking questions— so I did. While I needed to put those last missing pieces of the jigsaw together, I also had to accept that some pieces were gone forever.

  After he departed I sat there, stunned, staring at the contents of the letters and certificates, reading them again and again. Afterwards my mind wandered to my father’s mantra: “Coolah put our family on the financial map.” I had needed other maps growing up. A map for me, Kim, rather than one map to fit us all. I needed a map for my education, talents, ambitions, health and emotional wellbeing. Parenting for my parents had been about feeding, sheltering, clothing, protecting and equipping us for the day when we would leave home. My parents excelled at those parts of parenting, but had missed other parts. Even my family’s financial map had had its limitations. To navigate the big ordeal, especially, I needed other maps. I realised that that was also true of my parents: a guidebook, a handbook, a manual, anything that may have helped all of us through the big ordeal. But there was nothing.

  *

  Six months after the conversation with my father about his family, something inside bubbled like lava until it broke through. It had been simmering for a long time. Like tentacles of an octopus they latched on and would not loosen their grip. The big ordeal came back to bite and it bit hard. I ignored it and pushed on with my family duties and my university work. Something wasn’t quite right and I was seriously out of kilter. These feelings reminded me of how I felt during the big ordeal. Again, something was seeping into my body and mind. I continued to ignore it, fight it and push it away, until I couldn’t do that anymore. I was erratic, out of control; and I had lost my sense of self. Once a social drinker, I became a self-medicating drinker—before I even understood what that meant. I developed a dependency on alcohol. It spread throughout my life; a crutch and a companion. As the quantity increased, the detrimental effects gradually took a toll on my family.

  I convinced myself I loved alcohol because it was genetic, passed on from my father’s side. This was an excuse. I was choosing to use it to dim the memories that came back to possess me. I reached for the bottle nearly every night—to numb me, to drown out any bad thoughts and feelings, and relax my irritation. Alcohol works wonders, but only for a short period of time. I had to drink more and more to maintain the effect and keep the tentacles at bay. As one blurry night blended into the next, with no time for hangovers in between, self-destruction set in. My problems became bigger than I was. I was unable to shake them off and they reduced my ability to carry out simple everyday tasks. Marking assignment papers started to take me double the time; for the first time ever I struggled with the basics. My illness eroded my wellbeing, drove my actions, and my thoughts, with debilitating results. I had no idea what was wrong with me, but I knew something wasn’t right. Finally, I admitted to myself that alcohol was never going to work; it wasn’t a quick fix or a long term one. Mark, alarmed at my decline, managed to convince me to attend a relationship therapy session with him.

  Forcibly, a health professional opened up the emotional floodgates. A tsunami awaited me. I fought her initial diagnosis of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, plus I disputed, refuted and ignored her until I could not anymore. After six months of fighting, I finally had to agree with her diagnosis. I was crippled by this thing; I hated it and named it “D” unable to say the word “depression.” The only way to move forward was to face it, name it
and own it. I was forced to do so in order to get some relief from this thing and somehow make sense of it. I felt compelled to take the big ordeal out of my memory box and write about it. I also accepted that I needed to take medication again. I became so exhausted and ill that I couldn’t continue to ignore how serious it was.

  My specialist, therapist and other health professionals attached various labels to me. They included post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression, severe anxiety disorder and then finally, bipolar disorder (II). I was in disbelief. I did not have a mental health illness. Not I. My father’s relatives did and they were locked up for it. But the professionals persisted. I was told that a combination of biological disposition, psychological and environmental factors and teenage emotional trauma were all contributing factors in my diagnosis. My irrational mind dominated and I feared I would be labelled “mad” and be locked up in a mental institution and the key thrown away, just as Dr Desmond had threatened three decades ago. As the illnesses worsened, my ability to function diminished. I had to give up my university work. Reluctantly, I believed them, accepted the diagnosis and trialled many medications. The depression is?was so severe it has its own ability to break through the medication. For three years, being unwell became my norm. Pockets of wellness were brief, but they enabled me to complete this book.

  My specialist recommended I continue with therapy. I reluctantly agreed. I loathed it, but I had to attend. Therapy was painful but the memory box was finally open. I had to relive the night of the ordeal to come to terms with it. And I remembered every minute detail. Writing words on paper was less painful that stating them out loud.