Sweet Surrender (12 page)

Because of her self-imposed rule against drinking before 5 pm, by five minutes beforehand she would be pacing around, looking at the clock and staring at the freezer where the ice cubes were in waiting.
On the dot of five o'clock she would fill a glass with ice and attack a bottle of Scotch whisky with great gusto. She did break from this discipline in times of trouble. There was a famous afternoon when our village in the Blue Mountains was thick with smoke, as bushfires raged in the valleys on both sides of the escarpment. We nervously attended to the recommended precautions, clearing around the house, filling the gutters with water, filling buckets and setting hoses in event of fire coming close to the house. Satisfied, Mum went next door and drank a bottle of whisky with our neighbour Mrs Batty, who wasn't a hardened drinker. Mum passed out on her sofa and the two of them eventually staggered back to our house in a pretty wretched condition (I am sure Mum drank more than her half of the bottle). Heaven knows how I would have coped had the fires really created a danger, evacuating four children, various cats, dogs, chickens and a paralytic mother!

Mum was slender and agile, and into her seventies could still hold a difficult ballet pose that required great flexibility. At times the children cringed at the sight of their grandma performing ballet movements in the living room in front of their friends, steadying herself with one hand on the back of the sofa, a glass of whisky in the other.

There was no point in stopping her drinking. She lived in a safe environment, was not in any physical or financial danger, and was surrounded by loving and supportive family members. I suppose if she had developed cirrhosis of the liver it would have been essential for her to stop, but although she was frail towards the end, she ate well and was still as sharp as a tack. In the end, it was the cigarettes that ultimately caused her death.

My first encounter with death in the family was the loss of my baby sister when I was two and a half years old. At that tender age I had absolutely no concept of death and, indeed, no real memory of Jane, who was ill in hospital for seven months before she died a few weeks short of her first birthday. However, the months leading up to her death were immensely fraught for the family, and for my mother in particular, because we had no car and the children's hospital at Camperdown was quite a hike from our place on public transport. The nursing staff didn't approve of lengthy visits from parents, especially from mothers, and towards the end I think Mum only made the heartbreaking journey to Jane's bedside about once a week, if that.

It was my family's response to the death that had a profound impact on my brother, Dan, and me. We were immediately bundled up by one of our sympathetic neighbours and taken to a farm near Goulburn, where we were lovingly cared for by her unmarried sister, who must have only been in her early forties, but seemed to my child's eyes to be positively ancient. It was weeks – probably more than a month – before Mum made the journey to collect us, I think by train, so I imagine that
in spite of the warmth of our carers we were probably very confused, frightened young children.

Jane's name was not mentioned again for years and years – it was almost as though all traces of her had vanished. There was a funeral but I don't believe even my parents attended. To this day I am not sure whether my sister was buried or cremated or if, apart from a birth and death certificate, there is a record anywhere of her existence. One photograph of her as a gaunt, wide-eyed baby staring at the camera from her hospital bed is the only haunting evidence my mother had of her short life. So for me the emotions of fear and loss associated with death were felt from a very early age.

My father's death, many years later, was very different. He committed suicide, which was both shocking and disturbing, but also, strangely, a relief to me because of the turbulent time he and Mum had been through in the years leading up to it. They were in the process of a long and acrimonious marriage break-up, and he had slid further and further into alcoholism and depression, as had my mother. His demise seemed like a logical escape from the corner into which he had painted himself – not that there is anything strictly logical about suicide.

I was pregnant with Miriam at the time and the whole business of his death and the funeral and the aftermath seems like a hazy dream to me now. I know that I didn't grieve for him at the time – I didn't want sadness to impinge on the joy I was experiencing being with David and waiting for the birth of our first child. So I swept my father's death under the carpet and instead concentrated on helping my mother to climb out of her despair and hopelessness.

It seems amazing to me now that I was so blissfully unaware at that stage of my life, when I was pregnant with my first child, that any of those negative family characteristics could possibly be revisited on my own children. As far as I was concerned I was about to break the cycle, and to produce a new and healthy generation that would be free from the family demons. I was incredibly naïve.

When a newborn is shown off to the wider family by their proud parents, it's amusing to listen to relatives laying claim to individual features. His grandfather's chin, her Aunty Mary's nose, his sister's eyes. There's something to be said for this old custom. Children are an extraordinary amalgamation of everyone who has come before them, as family photos testify. One of our grandsons, Sam, looks astonishingly like photographs of David at the same age. My grand-daughter Ella resembles my daughter – her Aunt Miriam – but then again she also looks a lot like her own mother, Lorna.

I have a theory that the ultimate clue to what a baby will look like as an adult is evident at the time of birth. That first precious hour. Miriam didn't look like anyone we could identify when she was born – she just looked like herself – and as an adult she has mannerisms and speech patterns like me, but doesn't really resemble either of her parents. When they handed me Aaron, tightly swaddled with his small rumpled face on view, he looked so much like my late father that I could barely believe my eyes. As he grew from babyhood into a toddler, from a toddler to a schoolboy and into his teens, he looked nothing like my dad. Now, in his thirties, he once again looks so much like my father it's quite scary. Blond curly hair, a smooth complexion and intense blue eyes. Even his own children, when shown old photographs of their great-grandfather Theo, will ask, ‘Is that my dad?'

So it would seem to me that the essence of the person is present from the moment of conception, not just the physical representation but also the way in which the mind works. Not just the outside, but the inside as well. I also strongly resemble my father. The same naturally frizzy hair, the same fair skin, the same driven, addictive personality and the same irreverent sense of humour. We both had careers as journalists and both maintained strong opinions on a wide range of subjects, politics in particular. Yet to me my father represented the epitome of all that was selfish and irresponsible. I have spent most of
my adult life trying
not
to be like him, and sometimes I am not too sure I am winning the battle.

In some ways, my fears are the irrational product of a child's inability to distinguish herself from her parents. I am
not
my father, just as my son Aaron is
not
my father. But looking back on our family history now, from the vantage point of my late fifties, I can see realistically that I am the product of this history, no matter how much I have tried to avoid it. It's obvious that when you are a direct descendant of alcoholic and depressive parents and grandparents on both the maternal and paternal sides of your family, there is a pretty strong chance that you will carry one or both of the genes.

Maybe my half-brother, Jon, and my half-sister, Margaret, inherited their mother's genes, because neither of them have alcohol problems. My brother, Dan, and I both do. We all grew up in the same environment, experienced the same stresses and witnessed the same unhappiness, but Jon and Margaret never felt compelled to drink to excess. When Jon comes down for our family Christmas gatherings he has a few beers and an afternoon nap. In his own environment he only drinks when he goes out socially, perhaps to a community meeting, and he rarely plonks down in front of the TV with a cold can of beer unless he has visitors or there's a heatwave. He just isn't a drinker. Margaret used to enjoy a glass of wine with a meal but to my knowledge she was never a wild party girl. It's curious.

The problem with drinking is that it's insidious. It creeps up on you and dependence is just another glass of wine away. These days my brother, Dan, has his drinking well under control. Like our father he has suffered from depressive illness all his life. For many years he, too, controlled his mood swings by medicating himself with alcohol. A brilliant man – first a journalist then a scholar and university lecturer – his demons eventually caught up with him. He suffered a series of ruined relationships, mental breakdowns and periods of homelessness. Today, he has pulled his life together and although he lives alone he is
a valued and highly regarded member of his community. He has a few drinks maybe once a week at his local, but he's basically a very fit and disciplined individual who has finally managed to wrestle the family disease under control. Given his journey, it's amazing he's still alive.

I love to drink. I love the effect of alcohol. The taste, the smell, the ritual, the associations of pleasure. David, on the other hand, is not a drinker. He loves a glass of good wine but when I am not at home he never opens a bottle to drink alone. He may have the odd gin and tonic, and certainly enjoys drinking wine when invited to dinner with our neighbours near the farm. But I suspect that if he never had another drink in his life, he wouldn't give a damn.

When we first met I only drank beer, in those days the journo's standard choice. I frequently bought a six-pack after work, and David was horrified by the rate at which I could consume can after can without batting an eyelid. One day he suggested we forgo the beer after work. I was furious. He said he thought I ‘had a problem' and that, I must say, made me even more mad. Just to prove to him I didn't have a problem I stopped drinking. For a time.

During my pregnancies I drank very little, but I certainly remember the pleasure of that first tall glass of cool dark Guinness stout that I gulped down to kick-start lactation. Not a bad excuse. We were quite poor when the children were young, and I was a busy working mother, so drinking to excess was out of the question. For many years I brewed my own beer and drank a bottle every night while I was cooking. It was my ‘reward' at the end of a hectic day of juggling work and family.

These days, especially in France, wine is affordable and I can stock the cellar with as much as I like. Wine goes with food and I love to cook, so it has become an entrenched part of my daily routine. Indeed, I find it hard to eat a delicious meal without a glass (or more) of wine, and am horrified to see other diners in restaurants quaffing fizzy drinks with a carefully prepared main course. If I were the chef I would ask them, politely, to leave immediately. On cold days at Yetholme I often
cook ‘a little hot lunch' for David and me to break the day. With wine? Of course.

David points out that the medically recommended quota of drinks for a woman is one per day, with at least two alcohol-free days a week. I can't imagine being able to stick to such a regime, but I worry that ultimately my drinking habits will impact on my life. I have regular blood tests, and to date my liver function has been fine – as was my mother's, even when she was drinking more than half a bottle of whisky a day. I suspect her resilience has lulled me into a false sense of security.

I tell myself that it would be easy to stick to a limit of a couple of glasses, but it doesn't ever seem to work out that way. When I have one I continue to keep pouring while I cook the dinner, chat to David and watch the evening news. I should stop drinking after the meal but I rarely do. I sip wine while checking my evening emails or catching up with the family on the phone. The only thing that stops me is bedtime. Mum used to watch television sitting up her in bed with a glass of Scotch. I haven't come to that. Not yet, anyway.

But I know I have memory lapses after drinking to excess, and it's more than possible that my failure to take on board Miriam's revelations about being molested as a child could easily be because we were both ‘relaxing' over a glass of wine at the time. To date, my imbibing hasn't affected my ability to work. Indeed my schedule is extremely demanding and I rationalise that having a few drinks in the evening – or even at lunchtime – is a great way to relax and de-stress. The reverse is probably the truth of the matter, as alcohol is a known depressant.

David believes that my affairs were very much the result of socialising with too much alcohol. There's more than an element of truth to it, that being in a heady environment so far from home, spending hours over lunches and dinners with attractive, entertaining men, was a fatal combination. That the vast quantities of wine consumed greatly affected my judgement and decision-making. But I also believe there
were many issues working away in the background of our relationship, and there was also my general mid-life feeling of restlessness.

From my perspective, looking back over the last thirty years, there's a more serious probability to confront. I can't help but wonder if alcohol played a larger role in my own family dynamics than I have ever wanted to acknowledge. I considered myself to be a social drinker but the reality was that I drank every evening. For many years I drank beer, but eventually it became wine – often cask wine, which makes it difficult to keep track of just how many glasses are being consumed over a number of hours. It's possible that my failure to see the problems my children were experiencing could easily have been because I was seeing the world through a haze.

When my mother was still alive, I certainly didn't drink to the same extent as her, but I joined her every evening in a glass or two before dinner, and I fear I was in denial about my increasing dependence on alcohol for a sense of wellbeing. The fact that I was functioning quite effectively in my work and that my home life appeared, to all intents and purposes, to be running along smoothly most of the time, gave me a false sense of security. My friends marvelled at my ability to accomplish so much, juggling my family and quite a high-powered career, but looking back I can see that I coped with the stress of ‘keeping up appearances' by getting mildly sloshed every evening.

I am confronting this issue now because so much has happened over the past two or three years that I have been forced to stop in my tracks and take stock. I'm not necessarily blaming myself for problems my children may be experiencing as adults, nor am I wallowing in guilt, but I can see now that my laidback parenting style and my belief that ‘every day should be a party' may well have impacted on their lives. I could continue with my head buried in the sand or I can be open and discuss my thoughts and fears with my family. I have chosen the latter way.