Sawdust (15 page)

I was almost unnaturally enthusiastic about the whole running away thing this time.
It actually made me warm towards Mum, like she was on my side, like she was putting herself out for me – only to realise not long after we had sped away that the real reason she had included me was because of Brad. Because Brad had a car. A vehicle big enough to get her and everything she needed out of town.

What Brad had was a pale yellow Holden HR sedan that roared louder than a tiger, but it was exactly what she needed to get her and her ample things to Bundaberg, where we were headed.

Aside from Jim, we were all included this time because Mum was going for good. There was even a bird cage with Marge’s pet cockatiel, Joey stashed in the car.

It all came to a head when Mum as usual, but in this instance after a few months rather than weeks, called Dad to say she was sorry, she was missing him – and we were all hauled back home again.

But Brad, who on weekends used to specially drive all the way from Rockhampton to Bundaberg to visit me, was suddenly not included in the transportation home. And of course I wondered why. In fact, he would not be seen again for a long time.

I learnt later, as these things always turned out, that sometime after the run to Bundaberg, Dad found out Brad had helped in the get-away. And Dad –
You don’t ever piss Dan Gallagher off, Dad
– came out all guns firing. Not quite literally in this instance, but with that square-stone face of his, he got hold of Brad somehow and told him to leave off’a his daughter – quicker the better – and never step back on the Anondale property again. Or he would tear him apart with his bare teeth.

The real words he screamed and ranted, I also learnt later, were ones that went something like this: ‘Come near my property again, you fucking little mongrel dog, and I’ll have you up for carnal knowledge. Now keep the fuck away, little mongrel pisshead!’ I could just see the tip of Dad’s tongue blazing like a gun.

Scared as a rabbit, Brad, even with all his rugby league height and strength, didn’t ask any questions, waited to hear no replies, and ran for his life.

Feeling absolutely and completely left in the lurch, utterly confused and ready to blame myself yet again, I wrote a number of letters, pouring out my heart to him but he never answered them. I even rang his brother trying to find out what had happened. But no one had any answers for me. His brother said he would pass on my message.

Then one day, out of the blue, Brad rang. He said he wasn’t supposed to call me but just wanted to say he was sorry that he wouldn’t be able to speak to me again and couldn’t explain why. He sounded upset but that was that, no more to be said.

It wouldn’t be until much later that he finally got up the courage to visit the property one last time and admit the reason he wasn’t able to call or come to see me again. Even though it was well and truly over now – thanks to tough old Dan Gallagher – my dad – it gave a sense of relief to learn it wasn’t that Brad had simply had enough of me – or found that
unspeakable father-daughter “thing” too hard to live with.

Trembling, I could hear the truth in his voice: he never returned because he was dead scared of Dad. He apologised and confessed what others already knew,
Piss off Dan Gallagher and prepare for the next world.

Brad should have known it already from the fear on men’s faces who had looked into the whites of Dad’s eyes as he told them he was going to rip their heads from their shoulders.

Like the story of the time Dad made Jacko Johns dance. Yes, Dad actually made a man dance. Known for his warmth and open-heartedness, people in the pub would say
, If you need a bed, go and see big-yarning, get the plonk out, “have-a-chat” Dan Gallagher
.
This same man, Dad, one night made a man dance.

It happened when Dad’s cousin Ruby and her partner were staying at our place. Ruby was pregnant but she and her partner Jacko Johns weren’t hitting it off all that well. Dad, very protective of his cousin, heard that Jacko had hit Ruby. He went straight to Jacko’s room and told him in plain language to bugger off and not come back for a while.

Seeing Dad’s fury, Jacko heeded the advice but headed straight for the nearest pub. He came home much later that night, full of bravery.

Hearing him scuffing up the drive, Dad opened the front door and yelled out: ‘You need to bugger off, mate. You’re not comin in here.’

Jacko called back, ‘I just want to see Ruby. It’s got bugger all to do with you, mate. She’s my partner.’

‘Not the way you’re acting,’ Dad hollered, and warned him again.

Instead, Jacko walked straight towards the front door, and the next thing, what nobody had seen coming, Dad’s shotgun came out from his side and he started blazing away. Rocks and sand and stone were flying everywhere, but Dad was shooting with such pinpoint accuracy around Jacko’s feet that the man actually began to dance. He was wriggling his body and jumping with such dexterity he looked like a famous Irish stage performer.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ he eventually howled until Dad finally shot the last bullet and held the gun up against his shoulder. Jacko Johns, sobered up and frightened like a rabbit, ears stiff and beaming up to the sky, ran all the way down our dusty driveway and off the property. Not to return again.

And so with Brad, he had been warned, and all six foot and four or five inches of him, took the warning like it had come down from the Judge in the Sky himself.

Even after his apology to me, I never saw Brad again. I even met with his new girlfriend once, the girl he was going to marry, and who was already pregnant, and she admitted this to me: she was his second choice.

Without any bitterness, Shalene, Brad’s fiancée, pulled out from the glove box of her car the lovelorn letters I had written to Brad. The very ones I had thought he hadn’t received when I was waiting for him to contact me once we were all ensconced back in Anondale.

She said Brad had always cared for me more than any other and would always have a place for me in his heart. But he was her family now, she smiled faintly, pointing to her enlarged baby-filled belly. Yes, the deed was done. Dad had done his work. Work nobody else in the world had the capacity to understand.

I may no longer have been afraid of Dad, but at the time I was still in need, needy.

Basically, I was still just a Year Eleven schoolgirl going on sixteen and still badly in need of love and direction. Mum would also divorce Dad not long after this, yes finally, eventually, walk out on him forever, but that didn’t necessarily make life easier.

I had some strength by this time, even reached a certain peace with Mum for a while, but love and a known path to walk along were another thing altogether.

To put it another way, physically I may have loosened Dad from around my neck, shoulders and everywhere else he had laid his bare hands on, but mentally I was still seeking understanding, solace, still wanting the world around me to spin on its known axis, not some parallel, distorted one.

And like the high school principal in those hard times had allowed me to lay my head down on a big comfy cushion and thereby show me there were always warm little corners of light in the world, I was soon to find someone else in my life. Another teacher, of a different ilk, who would also bring a kind of solace.

Some time just before Mum’s divorce from Dad,
she hauled us all off to the nearby beach town of Burrum Sound where we rented a house to live.

It was over there, midway through Year Eleven, after the split from Brad, that I fell in love with someone else. My teacher. Well, one of them. And maybe love was too strong a word. Let’s just say I became infatuated. Totally and completely. But then again, who wasn’t infatuated with Mr Dreamboat Doherty?

The thing about Mr Doherty was that he was young, handsome and always ready with an open-minded laugh that felt like he was on your level. There were few who could resist the twenty-five year old teacher’s charms.

What I think I liked most about him was that he was always so rational and calm. He listened. And not only did he listen, he was interested. In fact he listened and was interested just like he was one of us.

When I met Mr Doherty, that is to say when I moved into his class, it was around the time Mum and Dad began divorce proceedings, so it was obvious the move to Burrum Sound was going to be for a long time. All of us girls thought Mr Doherty was drop-dead gorgeous.

Dark and tallish with long curly hair, Mr Doherty stood out in a crowd. And yet, our teacher was so much like one of the lads that some at the school even mixed in the same circles as him.

Burrum, as we called it, was a small community, and everyone knew everyone. But there were some people who were so worthwhile knowing you would always find a way to meet them. Mr Dreamboat – Luke Doherty – was one of them. And I was one of the girls who would.

Well, in my case, really, there was no choice but to plot and plan a way in which Mum would allow me to mix with my newfound friends. If I told Mum I was going out with a group of girlfriends, and on top of that we were going to be at a party where Mr Dreamboat was, I knew what the answer would be.

So, not being totally honest about what our plans were, the girls came up with the idea of saying we were just going to “hang out” with some other friends from school at Peter’s Play Park, a place where kids often congregated. It was really the only way I could get out. Mum actually agreed, so I was over the moon.

One particular Saturday night was special though, when a group of boys and girls from school were at Mr Doherty’s house. Yes, on this occasion, the party was at our teacher, Luke Doherty’s house. Best of all, there were no parents whatsoever around. I guess, being a young independent professional man, an educator of children, it was only obvious Luke Doherty would have a house with no parents around. But it seemed like a massive adult leap forward to us kids at the time.

Not only were we at out teacher’s house, not only was he handsome as hell, there was absolutely no nasty threats of the cane or punishing judgemental repercussions staring into our foreheads.

I am not quite sure how it happened, but Luke Doherty actually singled me out and we got talking. I mean he was actually talking to less than mediocre, dim-witted me! He was so easy to talk with, it was not long after we began to chat that I was calling him Luke.

There was definitely something different about him, because he so obviously enjoyed hearing what we girls and boys had to prattle on about and had such a patient ear – if not a smile – for every whinge and whine we had about school and school teachers.

In the background, there was music, The Moody Blues from memory and Dire Straits, or even Elvis Presley, my all time favourite – and Luke and I danced together.

It was fun. Straight out fun. And soon – I’m not sure how it happened – we were secretly touching hands. Just the gentle feel of him, his warm, smooth fingers and the idea that he was touching me and none of the other girls was more than enough to have the brittle bones all down my spine tingling and shivering. My skin felt alive like a wave of little electrical shocks.

He loved his music and wanted to show me his collection of favourite records. And then we were in a bedroom together, laughing and talking. He was gentle, ever, ever so gentle. He had these long, tender hands, pink, unworked and warm; that’s what I think I liked most about him. Hands that reminded me of Aunty Bev. Breathing heavily, it was not long before our faces came together and we were kissing. And then… and then... we were having sex. He was even mindful to make sure we were protected, another thing I wasn’t used to, protected sex, no chance of an unwanted pregnancy for him.

More important than anything, I was having sex with my school teacher! The handsome, caring, Mr Doherty.

Afterwards, I felt guilty. But it was in my opinion – and I knew, in most other girls’ opinion at the time – no great sin. The guilt was simply that of a young girl feeling the inevitable tinge of conscience – for doing something grown up. Something beyond her years.

In reality, I felt my head spinning and the whole episode felt like nothing short of... heaven. The only thing that mystified was that he’d chosen me. Me, out of all the girls. Me, Deb, Debbie, Deborah, above everyone else.
I
was the one who had slept with our drop-dead gorgeous teacher.

Despite my being directionless, dysfunctional, bred upside down, for me our teacher was no longer the authority, Mr Doherty, who stood in front of the class but plain and simple Luke. That didn’t just happen. It was like something ordained.

Did it ever cross my mind that he had overstepped, that he had led me into some misguided hallway, that maybe what he had done was not really that different, really, really to what Dad and his mates had done to me in their men’s den? The answer to that is, no, no, and no again.

Maybe I was an idiot. But then half the girls were idiots. We all wanted Mr Doherty to notice us. And in the event, it felt closer to floating, to a comforting, abundantly rolling cloud than anything I had experienced in my entire life.

Everything about Luke Doherty was as it appeared: gentle, slow, kind and genteel. It was like Dad in reverse. And definitely a lot less awkward than Brad with his six-foot four or five inches, who was still really a kid, who freaked out as soon as Dad stared him down.

Dad
. Yes, Dad. By comparison, this was Valhalla, the Elysian fields. The other kids knew it too. It was like sleeping with a rock star. Only, I felt strongly I was not just a groupie. Luke Doherty really meant something. Meant it when he hugged and held and did all manner of things with me.

Or did he?

The next day when I saw him at school, obviously a bit embarrassed, I still managed to give him a shy hello and a tentative smile. It was during break, in the playground, and he walked right past me with only the slightest of nods and a tight little rat’s quiver on his lips. I looked back at him. I was mystified. He stopped. I walked up to him, a young puppy, not sure how to proceed.

‘Don’t ever,
ever
indicate there is anything between us,’ he said below those once warm lips that I had so voraciously kissed the night before. ‘I could lose my job.’ Then, with that tight little smile of his, stiff as a ball pen, he walked on.

Was I destroyed? Confounded? Lost for words? Yes, maybe lost for words, but in my barely sixteen year-old mind I understood or did my best to understand. Mr Doherty was protecting himself, that was all. Anyone in a similar position would do the same.

Inside my heart, I knew he was still the same Luke Doherty, the same gentle, friendly, kissable Luke Doherty as he had been the night before. I was a grown up and this wasn’t exactly my first time. Just the first time with a real, gentle man. I had to be careful. For both our sakes.

It was worth the effort: our teacher, Luke Doherty had no intentions of ditching me, and after school everything would change. In fact, on weekends to come he made sure he was there for me and we continued to see each other. Even if it was not exactly openly – he had of course already explained why – it was always, in all seriousness, affectionate and intimate. Often, nothing happened, it was just hangout type fun with the rest of the gang.

Luke even came to my house a couple of times to help me with my homework. Mum didn’t mind him being there because she thought he was simply my teacher and helping me with subjects I was not really fond of. She obviously trusted him enough to agree and didn’t think anything was amiss.

To be fair, he did help me with my homework. But one of those nights after Mum had gone to bed and we’d finished my schoolwork, he climbed into my bed.

My relationship with Mr Doherty seemed like aeons, moons, many, many turns of the universe. I loved everything about him, the way he listened and laughed and thought what I had to say was mature and important. Time was infinite. I loved even the silences at school, in the classroom, as long as I could be in the same place as him. I loved the fact that I was spending a great deal of time at his house now. That we were like adults.

I also loved the other, more exotic times. Like the times we spent together on the beach. Just the two of us, lying there, on the nude white sand, the day waning and the moonlight rising, the soft beams of silver moonlight tickling on our naked backs and sunburnt faces as we made love.

I thought those days were forever. They seemed an eternity.
Not only was there this genuine communication between me and Mr Doherty, but here I was with this man who everyone looked up to and adored, a guy, a fella, an adult fella who could have clicked his fingers at any girl he wanted. Or so it seemed to me. But guess what? It was me having sex with him. It was me, Deb, Debbie, Deborah, of all the kids, who was Mr Doherty’s special girl.

Did it have my head wobbling and my grades spiralling down? It had my head wobbling all right, but actually I was so inspired my grades went up.

I was a young girl lost but ready to believe, and yes, yes, absolutely infatuated. But because I wanted to be.

The only thing I had ever been taught by Dad and Mum was not to trust anyone, not ever to go to other peoples’ homes or parties, and then, on the other hand, Dad would trust me with whomsoever he saw fit.

Dad’s world, an obscure, parallel universe, and now I was slipping into this seemingly real world. Where love and sex were intermingled, and true. Where my feelings pulsed freely on my flesh. Where I was grateful to feel love without fear.