Odyssey In A Teacup (35 page)

I was only eleven years old and in Grade 6 at school when Merilyn Wauchope, a girl in my class, and I were appointed staffroom monitors. The stint lasted for three months. It meant that during this period, we were to clean up the staffroom every day after the teachers had finished their lunch. They called the arrangement ‘an honour’.

‘This is in recognition of your outstanding work,’ said Mrs West, our teacher.

My chest puffed out with pride. Yet, students who had misbehaved handled the morning tea shift. For them, cleaning was a punishment; for us, it was a privilege.

Merilyn and I were invested with such responsibility. We had to clear the table, wash and dry the dishes, replace the tablecloth with a fresh one, reset the table for the next sitting (morning tea the following day), and sweep the floor. The table was a long one, which accommodated about twenty-six staff members. The shock when we entered the staffroom each day didn’t diminish with time. The working conditions were socially unacceptable: one long, long hour; no pay; toiling in
schmutz
.

Half-drunk cups of coffee and tea had the occasional apple core floating in them, or they were stuffed with once white cloth napkins discoloured by the dregs. Ashtrays overflowed with lipstick-stained cigarette butts. The tablecloth, spattered with orange juice and squirted tomato seeds, was strewn with sandwich crusts, orange peel, biscuit crumbs, dried tea leaves, the odd chicken bone, and, on one occasion, a pubic hair (I was yet to sprout pubes, so at the time, I just thought it was from the head of someone with very curly hair). And my parents entrusted my education to this wildlife?

I’d never seen such mess, but I was good at the job because I knew a thing or two about cleaning. I had to do it at home from a very early age. For Sylvia, this was a moral imperative. But it was also a biological one. She said her demands were justified on account of her pushing both Myron and me out of her vagina, although she didn’t actually say vagina, nor did she say pawpaw (this rationale of hers was as close as she got to acknowledging that she had genitalia. Any reference to sexual organs was in relation to someone else’s). And where Myron yielded, God knows I argued against this:

‘Why should I?’

‘I carried you for nine months. I gave birth to you.’

‘But you didn’t want me in the first place!’

‘It doesn’t matter.
I still had you!’

The upside is that we got paid—two shillings a week pocket money. Even as a seven-year-old, I figured that once I earned enough, I’d move out of home. And we earned it by setting and clearing the table, doing the dishes every night, and polishing our bedroom furniture once a week. Because I was a girl, I had the additional tasks of hanging the washing out when I was tall enough to reach the line (Sylvia wound the hoist down to its lowest position), bringing the washing in, baking a cinnamon cake every Saturday afternoon, and cleaning up dog shit (we had pets from an early age). None of
this
felt like an honour. From age twelve, it drove a desire to become a schoolteacher so I could have someone else clean up my mess. The desire waned after that second year of high school—having Miss Parker as a teacher was enough to put me off not only teaching, but also actually finishing school. I left before my Matriculation year and applied for a job at the dental hospital.

‘It’s a teaching hospital. You do realise you could end up working with Myron,’ Ralph warned me.

‘Maybe. But it’s a small sacrifice for a woman in uniform.’

‘What?’

‘I just really like the idea of wearing a uniform. You know, for that sense of pride and belonging.’

‘You’ve been wearing one almost every day for the past eleven years, except for school holidays. Did it make you feel proud and as if you belonged?’

‘Um, well, no ... but this’ll be different. I’ll look like a nurse. In my uniform with its cap, I’ll be representing a profession.’

‘Hmm ... I
do
like nurses. And other women in uniform. French maids. Cheerleaders ... ’ Ralph’s voice turned husky and he started breathing heavily. ‘Naughty constables. Friendly skies flight attenda—’

‘I thought you said you only look at Playboy for the articles.’

‘Er, um, I do. I do. But some of the articles come with pictures, so you can’t avoid them.’

No, of course you can’t. What a himbo!

‘But hang on. I know you originally wanted to be a schoolteacher so someone else could clean up your mess. And I get why you changed your mind. But you’ve picked a job where you
will
have to clean up after people.’

‘I know. And I’ll have some mess to clean up, but not body waste like general medical nurses do.’

‘There are plenty of career choices where you can wear a uniform but don’t have to clean up body waste or any mess.’

‘Sure, but this one ... this one has a certain nobility to it. It’s like I’ll be doing my bit for the war effort.’

‘Ruthie. It’s impressive that you want to contribute to the greater good, and it would be a really noble cause if the war hadn’t ended over twenty-five years ago.’

‘Well, it hasn’t in my house! And what about the war in Vietnam? It’s still going. What about the returning vets?’

Ralph started breathing shallowly. He turned white.

‘Ralph. Are you okay? What’s wrong?’

‘Uh ... amputees.’

‘Oh. Well ... that’s not an issue for me.’ But the recognition factor was. I craved recognition; I didn’t end up getting it, though.

I loved the job in the beginning. I felt important walking around the hospital in my shapeless blue uniform and starched white cap. And all went well until an ex-military patient cleared his throat and hoiked phlegm into the spittoon. I hyperventilated as I relived the trauma of
that
experience in the back of Joe’s car. What if this patient had overshot? What if a gust of wind had come through the clinic window unexpectedly? The war effort would have to do without me.

Luckily, I was handed an out. I finished off the year in the orthodontic department, and I enjoyed it (kids don’t produce and hack out thick mucus the way grown men do). Then, Dr Fuckface offered me a job in his new private practice.

It wasn’t his real name; it’s what all the nurses in the orthodontic clinic called him. Each one had been assigned to him; each one had left his cubicle in tears after half an hour. According to the head nurse, Dr Greg Scholtz was intractable, impudent, stupid and disruptive (where had I heard those labels before?). So, Dr Scholtz and I got along like a house on fire. He left the hospital; I accepted his offer and went with him. And the hours I spent in his practice made me feel like I wasn’t an ugly duckling; I was a swan that had found her flock. I worked for Greg for six years, but then he and his family flew north. They moved to Sydney. He asked me to move too and come work for him. I couldn’t do it (or, wouldn’t). I couldn’t/wouldn’t leave my infested nest (and I didn’t want to leave my friends, especially Ralph). This decision remained one of those what-ifs. I got another job with another orthodontist.

Dr Jed David Evans was a big, loud Texan. He’d immigrated to Australia ten years earlier, got married and had three boys. The eldest son was Jed Evans Jr., the middle son was David Evan Evans, and the youngest son was Evan David Evans. Why-oh-why? Dr Evans came from a country with lots of people, so there were lots of names to choose from. And his field, where all of his patients were children, presented him with so many possibilities. It really didn’t need to be double or nothing.

‘So let me guess,
Jung
,’ I said to Ralph, ‘going on your theory, I was drawn to Evans because of my issues with naming. Looks like he also had naming issues!’ I laughed. Ralph didn’t. He observed something that had escaped me.

‘I’d say it had more to do with the names he called you.’

Dr Evans rarely called me by name. Mostly, I was ‘girlie’, ‘missy’ or ‘madam’: ‘I need you to take some impressions, girlie’; ‘I need you to go to the bank for me at lunchtime, missy’; ‘Make another appointment for Eric in six weeks, madam’.

I thought about it for a bit, then asked, ‘Are you trying to say this is related to the fact that Joe used to call me missy, too?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Mmm ... Evans spoke to other staff members the same way. And his wife.
And
his female patients, come to think of it. No one seemed to mind, though.’

‘What about you; did you mind?’

‘Um ... yeah. I did.’ In fact, I hated it when Joe did it and it was no better said with a Texan twang. ‘But I didn’t want to make a big deal about it.’

‘It is a big deal,’ Maxi said. ‘It’s demeaning to women. I wouldn’t allow that.’

‘Same,’ said Vette.

Then why did I?

Because I’d become inured to it. I felt kind of small when Joe spoke to me that way, but I ignored my feelings about it because I wanted to see him as the good guy. Sylvia was the enemy, wimpy Myron was Switzerland, and even though Joe didn’t protect me, I needed an ally in that house, so I convinced myself that he was it. But this question opened my eyes. I’d been blind to Joe’s role in shaping my views of myself as a woman and what I could be capable of. My perception of him as God and Santa had obscured his influence over me. But I could now see that he didn’t have much respect for women. Just like Jed David Evans.

‘I was doe-eyed when Evans threw me a crumb and actually called me Ruth! So I guess I deified him.’

‘Hmm ... worshipping the god of misogyny,’ Ralph suggested.

Vette asked me, ‘Who was the original one? The god of misogyny in the myths?’

‘Ooh ... er—’

‘I don’t know a whole lot about mythology the way you do, but weren’t all the gods pussy-whipped?’ asked Maxi.

‘Seems like it—their goddesses were no shrinking violets. So ... it’s a tough call.’

Ralph disagreed. ‘Not really. I’d say it’s a no-brainer.
Uranus
.’

We laughed, but Ralph’s assumption seemed reasonable, and not just in the literal sense (because Dr Jed Evans was an arsehole). There was more to it than that. Uranus—this god of the sky—was married to Gaia, the earth goddess. Turns out Uranus’s castration by their not-so-charming son Cronus was instigated by mommy. She even made him an iron sickle to carry out the deed. Conclusion? The sublime, wide-bosomed earth mother was the master ball-breaker. And with what seemed to be Evans’s misogynistic tendencies, you could easily deduce that Uranus was often running the show in his psyche.

But with their human qualities, the gods could be screw-ups. And Uranus let the side down when he expressed through
Evansanus
.

Jed Evans was the employer who had let rip and then tried to falsely incriminate his doorknob. The invention of the doorknob in the late nineteenth century was probably motivated by the need to blame something other than the dog. God knows, Joe managed to (he owed Alexander Graham Bell a debt of gratitude). But his farts were deliberate and birthed with pride, not treated like mistakes cloaked in shame as Evans had done. In that moment, he didn’t man up, and I lost respect for him because of it.

This doorknob incident was the deal-breaker for me. There had been an uncomfortable similarity between my working environment and my home environment: I didn’t know anything about misogyny back then, but I knew plenty about scapegoating. It reeked of injustice (even if the easy mark was only a doorknob). I handed in my notice because I could no longer work for someone I’d lost respect for.

‘Did you actually have any for him in the first place?’ Ralph asked. ‘Is deifying someone the same as respecting them?’ He had a point.

I sighed. ‘Vette was right; this is all a little too much reality. Enlightenment kinda sucks.’

‘At first, yeah. But like I suggested earlier, you can’t change something if you can’t see what’s wrong with it.’

The thing is, once you open the door to one area you get to see the shortcomings in others. Unlike Ralph, Maxi and Vette, I’d had no professional life to speak of. But my domestic life was not in great working order either.

Without thinking, I blurted out, ‘Things aren’t so stable at home.’ They looked at me in shock.

‘Since when?’ asked Vette.

‘Couple of years.’

‘A couple of
years
!’ repeated Maxi.

‘Probably even longer.’

‘Why didn’t you say something?’

‘And why am I only hearing this now?’ Ralph was upset. He’d always been my confidant but I hadn’t shared this with him.

‘I felt ashamed. He’s ... Reuben,’ I looked at Maxi and shrugged resignedly.

‘As in, the “The Perfect One”?’ Vette drew air quotes with her fingers. ‘The man who ticks all the boxes.’

‘Yep.’

‘We’re not Sylvia, Ruthie,’ Maxi said.

‘I know. I was still scared to tell you. And the timing had to feel right, I guess. All our eyes have been opened this weekend.’ I then looked at Ralph apologetically. ‘And there was pride too. I didn’t want to admit it even to myself.’

‘How bad is it?’ Maxi asked.

‘It’s not good.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Vette asked.

‘I don’t know.’ I teared up.

‘Whatever you decide, we’re here for you,’ Maxi reassured me.

‘I know. Thank you.’

They wanted details. I told them about Reuben’s inability (or unwillingness) to communicate, and that I couldn’t be bothered trying anymore, which saw us drifting further and further apart. We talked till midnight, when we all hugged and went to our respective rooms.

‘Don’t shut me out. Please,’
Ralph whispered as he left me at the door to my room.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
THERE’S THE RUB

Things deteriorated when I got home. Reuben didn’t like the new me. He thought the look was way too flamboyant for a ‘middle-aged mother’. It was ironic that what had captivated him when we first got together now seemed to constitute a threat to his neat, ordered little world. ‘We’ decided a lot of our problems stemmed from my family dysfunction, and it would be a good idea if I worked on myself.