Sawdust (12 page)

Dad also protected me. And by the time I was in high school his protection became paramount.
It was more than evident one day in the way he dealt with a man who tried to get his son to approach me.

I was about fourteen going on fifteen, and we had this man, Davo and his sixteen or seventeen year-old son, Grant staying at our place for a while. They were staying in the flat under our house. As we became more friendly with them, Davo, the dad, a short, very slightly built man, whose mentality seemed no bigger than his build, thought I would be a “good catch” for his overgrown, stick-like son.

Both father and son were happy, gregarious types in many ways, heavy smokers who didn’t mind a beer or two. Lacking in subtlety, Davo started making open assertions about his son being interested in me. It was almost like I wasn’t there, like I didn’t count, but Davo kept pushing Grant on me, and at one point asked me outright if I was on the Pill.

Frightened, I went and told Dad. He stared into my eyes as though to confirm, and, boy, I was not expecting to see the way his face burned. It went blood red and then blue, and he acted immediately. Lumbering two steps at a time like some fairy tale giant, he ran downstairs and bailed Davo up against a wall.

With fists raging like mighty rocks in the air, he threatened to take Davo’s head off with his bare hands. He said he would do so if Davo so much as brought his son near me. Dad was roaring and raving and spinning his hands about. Davo caught such a fright that he and his son left our place not long after.

Dad had proved himself: he was both Lord and Protector. He could bring people in or toss them out at will. He had complete power over his offspring and everything in his house.

Mum, on the other hand, wasn’t happy that I’d gone to Dad about it. As I was about to find out, she was rather fond of Davo. Before they left for good, after Dad’s outburst I was forbidden by Mum from stepping a foot in the flat downstairs – even though she was in there regularly herself, having her afternoon cuppa with Davo.

Just the way they looked at me, Mum and Davo, the corners of their eyes like pin-pricks, it was obvious that neither of them forgave me for telling Dad. (Another aside: Mum was devastated one day, about a year later, when Davo died of a heart attack. She heard the news after she’d returned home from one of her “excursions”... Strangely, I remember Dad comforting her like he was genuinely sorry for her loss. I didn’t quite follow at the time, but I think Mum and Davo were closer than they looked.)

In any event, Dad had proved he was my knight in white satin (and I suppose Mum’s as well). There definitely was something a daughter felt when, under threat, her father acts with such an indelibly hard step of the heel. It wasn’t just impressive, it made my imperfect chest bloat a little. It bound me further to him.

Dad’s power was omnipresent. Sometimes, as my sister Marge and I grew older, Dad would allow us to go to dances. They were held in a large hall and were really community dances, which meant they were actually whole-family affairs, from the littlies right up to grandparents. Nevertheless, Dad made sure we girls knew his eye was on us at all times; that our King was watching. Known as “barn dances”, the dances were a definite highlight on the social calendar for me and my sister.

A set of rules was put in place for us girls. One of them was that we should never go outside of “the barn” by ourselves and another was that we should let Dad know even when we were going to the toilet. He said this was so that he could watch out for us, which, one had to suppose, was just like any good country father would do.

But probably the main rule was this: Dad said a girl, and that included Mum, should never refuse an offer of a dance from a bloke. The rule seemed bent around an unwritten kinship with every bloke in town, that we girls should never in any way make a guy feel bad, ugly, unwanted, or in any way embarrassed.

Yet as in all events in our lives, Dad would lord over me and my sister, and with a nod or shake of his head, he would let us know exactly who we could dance with and who we should say no to.

On the other hand, standing there next to Dad at those dances, all six foot and three inches of Dan Gallagher, made me feel pretty special too, like no one was going to step out of line or try anything.

That, of course, was Dad’s terrain.

Being at high school didn’t mean the slander stopped.
The good thing was not everyone at high school knew about the court case, but among those who did, the slander only grew worse, more sophisticated, more venomous.

On one occasion some girls phoned me up from an afternoon birthday party. I wasn’t invited, of course, but they took the time to call me up to giggle into the phone and tell me I was a dirty little girl who slept with her father.

“Slut”, was the word they used. How they knew
that
much about me, I don’t know. But even though it was meant to be just pure poisonous gossip, it was like they
did
know. And all it did once again was confirm how soiled I was.

I also actually had a classmate as a boyfriend at this time. I was pretty happy with this newfound boyfriend and he was pretty happy with me. We spoke and kissed a couple of times, all rather innocently, as kids of fourteen might.

But even he, not that long after we were together, phoned me one day and said, ‘Deb, I’m sorry. I know about you and your dad. I can’t go out with you anymore.’

And that was the end of that. Silence. I cried and cried, now knowing another type of hurt. Strangely, though, it was Dad who comforted me. I didn’t tell him the real reason why I no longer had that innocent boyfriend, only that I didn’t anymore and I was heartbroken.

The truth was, as was happening more and more, while I felt denigrated and mucky, the taunts also galvanised me. I wanted to fight back, I wanted to do something for myself, not only against these kids – but also against Dad. Somehow, some time, I had to face him.

More and more I was seeing everything through the eyes of the kids around me, and ill conceived and badly spat out as their logic was, they were right. The fact was, although they thought they knew everything but were being no more than “bitches”, the kids at school were so right they didn’t even know the half of it.

If they knew it... I don’t know… a public hanging in the middle of the town square wouldn’t have been beyond them. And of course their parents would have applauded them.

There was one teacher at this time – actually the principal of my school – who turned out to be unexpectedly good to me. Good may even be far too soft a word for her. It was like she knew there was something not quite right with me, or at any rate had a knowledge of what was going on in my home, and whenever I was not feeling well at school, which seemed to be an increasing amount of time these days, she would allow me to come into her office area and lie down on a big, comfy cushion.

She would let me just rest my head and sleep there. It was warm and calming, with no pressure or expectations even of a thanks. In my mind it built a certain faith that even in a place like school there could be delicateness. As bad as things got, there were always little corners of light.

To me, especially at that time, it seemed almost unnatural that I would find it in a school principal’s office, but there I was, safe and secure and under no strain with her. Despite what she knew, or heard, she never asked me anything and I also never told her anything.

Whenever the thought of telling her anything so much as entered my brain, I saw in front of me Mum galloping into the schoolyard and there, right in front of everyone, giving me a crack or two across the face. Dad, I knew, would go utterly ballistic.

I imagine, in her soft and comforting way, the principal was hoping eventually something in me would crack open and I would want to spout the secrets from my buggered up brain. It never happened. My fears were too great.

Sometimes, though, I wished she may have prodded a bit more. Because if she knew the following story she definitely would have done something. No one knew about it. That is to say, there were some who did know, or possibly knew, but in effect they didn’t, because nobody was saying anything.

It was the height of summer, the air hot and indecently thick with humidity, and we were all out at this swimming place in the Nebo River, that is to say, us kids, Dad and a woman friend of the family, Doris and her two young children.

Mum wasn’t there. She was away somewhere – with my younger sister Marge. Yes, Mum away again, and it was obvious even to my very young teen head that Dad had eyes for Doris, at any rate he was continually swimming pretty close to her. It was also obvious she didn’t mind. Was in fact enjoying the proximity of him.

We kids were splashing one another and jumping into the river from the bank.

But Dad was also full of fun on that day. He was taking time out from Doris to play with us, and when Dad played with us it was like there were two suns blistering in the sky. We loved his towering strength and boyishness.

‘One, two, three,’ he would shout and we would jump off his clasped hands like it was a springboard into the water. Sometimes we would even dive from his shoulders. He was so tall it was like double the height of a normal springboard.

Then he would swim back to Doris and they would stay close for long periods. But, inevitably, he would come back to us kids and splash and throw us about.

At one point, I’m not sure where everyone else got to, but it was just me and Dad; that is to say he had me alone and I was loving it as he did the things normal dads do, splashing and chucking me into the water. But then he started paying me that special attention, that is to say, doing what
my
dad did that was special, rubbing himself against me.

It was not long before he had all his fingers down there. It was not what I wanted to do right then and began to swim away. He pulled me back, struggled with me, considered me with those sharp bird eyes of his, and then the strangest thing happened. Well, it seemed so strange to me because it happened so fast, so frenetically, almost impossibly.

While I put my awkward girl resistance up to his hands, he heaved me under the water. In fact he pulled me down so hard into the water it felt like I was about to be fired back up into the air with the power of a canon. Only he kept me under the water, and I felt this blunt skewer-like thing thud into my behind.

With my togs pulled to one side, what he did right then hurt like someone was sending a spike right up my spine. Like I imagine a lumber puncture feels. I could not help but send out a kind of shrill animal shriek that came right from deep inside my lower back and speared back up through the air.

Hearing my agony, and seeing everyone turn around, Dad let me go, and the first thing he whispered into my ear, was, ‘Sorry. I’m sorry, Deb. I didn’t mean to do that.’

Do what? I didn’t even know what he meant, except that I was in extraordinary pain and had to drag myself to the banks of the river where I lay hurting like never before, blood streaming from my rectum.

How? How did he do it? That jab that was like a torpedo entering me? I thought I was going to need stitches, that I was going to faint or maybe even die. For two days after that I bled and had diarrhoea and thought I would never recover. To this day I still don’t know how a man – any man – could do that.

I wonder if that kind and compassionate school principal would have remained silent if she knew that story.

One thing I have to say about Dad is that at least he wasn’t a preacher
, well, not in the strict sense of the word. In fact, if anything, he was anti-religion. ‘A load of croc-shit,’ was the way he put it.

With a wry smile, sometimes with a bird-like laugh, he called believers “God-botherers”. And so although we did go to church once or twice for special occasions, and even to Sunday School once or twice, it was never a fixture of our lives.

Maybe Dad was right on this one. But the taste of Sunday School we kids had, made us want it, made us hang out for it. Just the idea of being with a bunch of other kids on a Sunday seemed like a great idea. It was a whole heap better than just hanging out by ourselves on the property.

But of course with Dad, and even Mum, that was never going to happen, regular Sunday school. Still, just about the age of starting high school, when things were looking pretty dismal at home with Dad and Mum, and the kids who knew about our family saga were running me ragged because of the court case, we started going to a Sunday school of sorts.

It was at a new family at the school, the Ogilvys. They were very religious and encouraged a Sunday school group at their home. Even Dad and Mum managed to get roped in. For us kids it was not just a change, it was like a holiday: everything at the Ogilvys was positive and sun-filled and non-judgemental. We loved it. But there was no way Dad was going to allow us to continue going there on a consistent basis – not to those “bunch’a God-botherers”.

Nevertheless, in the few times we did go there it was enough time for me to take in one of Mr Ogilvy’s foremost messages, which was this: ‘If you really want something and you pray to the Lord, you will get it.’

That really appealed to me, the idea that I could ask for something in my heart and I would get it. I can’t remember there being anything major at that time that I wanted, so with Dad’s “croc-shit” stance and our not being taken back to the Ogilvys’ Sunday School after a short while, I didn’t try very hard with my prayers.

But one day, not that long after, that was to change with strange effect. It happened on the day when our teacher, Miss Lovestone announced that she had lost her very expensive, very sentimental, absolutely irreplaceable diamond and sapphire engagement ring.

She was convinced the ring had become lost somewhere on the school oval. The whole school even had an “Emu Parade” around the oval the next day to try and find her precious ring. But after more than an hour of looking there seemed to be no luck there.

When I saw the distraught look on Miss Lovestone’s face, the way it seemed to have lost its colour, the way her eyes stared as though lifeless, with all my heart I wanted to find that engagement ring and bring back the ruddiness to her cheeks. So I got down on my knees, as I’d seen the Ogilvys do it at Sunday School, closed my eyes, and began to pray: ‘
Please God, pleeease
help me find Miss Lovestone’s ring.’

Kneeling there, I opened my eyes, and no word of a lie, I looked down and there it was. My heart leapt, I picked up the ring and ran over to give it to her. The colour immediately shot back to her face, even a couple of tears filled her eyes. The smile that took over her wasn’t just for the sake of a good child – it was like I had wrought a miracle. In her excitement she said I could have anything, absolutely anything I wanted in the world.

My heart racing, I stood beside her and thought, and then thought some more. But the amazing thing was I could think of nothing. Well, there was this one thing – stop my parents from fighting and arguing and make them into better people – but of course that was not something I could talk about. So, in truth, when I thought about it there really wasn’t a lot I wanted.

‘How’s about a lolly?’ she eventually said.

‘Mmm, yeah, okay,’ I said, rummaging, not really expecting to hold her to it.

As kids we hardly had lollies, and much as we loved Nesquick and biscuits the only lollies we were ever given, and infrequently, were those old boiled lollies. So when I told Ms Lovestone those were the lollies I loved, she ended up giving me a whole bottle of them. I was so happy when she actually placed the bottle in my hand the next day, I couldn’t wait to get home and share the sweets with my family.

But the ring incident proved much more important than that.

It was weird, but finding that ring after calling out to the heavens, gave me a sense of peace in myself, a kind of solace. I guess it was a kind of peace and comfort in the idea that there really was something out there, some force, some energy bigger and more knowing than us. Not necessarily “God”, or a god, but some Unknown Force that was actually listening and watching over everything. There was a connection between me and the great “out there”.

To this day I feel no guilt in saying in my heart,
‘
Please God. Pleeeease
...’
I believe it is good to ask, I believe it is good to pray – because it is a way of clarifying in ourselves what we really want.

It is a test: the more we want something, the more we internalise and pray for it. It is a way to see if we really want that thing. I don’t know of anybody who prays deep in their heart for things they don’t want.

Did it help my situation? Did it release me from Dad? The short answer is no, but it did give me a sense of the
power
of belief. Which was really, I came to realise, belief in oneself.

I found that ring. I also found, just in time, books like The Brothers Grimm that saved me from dipping into hell. That is the important thing. Knowing it is there. Something always to scoop us up from the floor. We don’t have to be religious to believe that. Just believing in ourselves and knowing someone is in a worse situation than we are is like a big, thick glass of strawberry Nesquick. It is, believe me. I’ve been there.

For me, it should have been a time for belief and hope.