The Long Hot Summer (11 page)

When I phoned from Australia the next morning, having heard the bad news on the grapevine, he simply reported, with his usual wry delivery, ‘It hasn't been a good week. The septic backed up into the garden and the upstairs loo stopped flushing. The phone line doesn't work and the computer's fucked and won't do emails. Then the cat died. Now this.'

Apparently that same evening, much later after the meal, our Scottish friend Sandie – who now lives near St Caprais permanently after retiring from her job as a window-dresser in a smart Edinburgh department store – reversed her car over a three-metre embankment and had to leave it there and get a lift home. It was retrieved by the local mechanic, Monsieur Molieres, with a truck and chain the following morning.

Sandie's only comment on the whole affair was that it was a shame that Anthony, who is a keen paraglider, didn't have his ‘flying contraption' in the back of his car at the time of the accident. ‘Then Jock would be one of the few people in history to have succeeded in colliding with a car, a house and an aeroplane all at the same time,' she quipped.

I believe, from reports, that a ‘survivors' lunch was held at Le Clos the day after to celebrate the events of the night before.

The rest of the weekend fête was fairly low key and incident-free. They had peaked early.

After I meet the publisher's deadline for finishing
Last Tango
in January 2003, life at home on the farm somehow slips back into an almost normal routine. David and I have stopped talking quite so obsessively about the affair and its aftermath – the book – and the fact that later this year we will have to deal with the publication and the possibility of a lot of negative publicity. We simply try to get on with our lives without dwelling too much on our problems. In any event, when I am home in Australia, France seems like a distant dream. A fantasy. And even though I know my recent trips have caused unholy havoc in my life, it still doesn't seem very real. It's another world, totally removed from my real life.

I am getting organised to return to France in May for a second walking tour and David is continuing to develop various film projects that are not without frustrations and setbacks. Over the years I have learned to be realistic about the ups and downs of the film industry. It sometimes takes a decade for a project to get through all the developmental stages, from early script
to final draft, finding the right director and cast, then pulling together all the money for the actual production. So I tend to switch off from the day-to-day irritations David experiences in his work as a producer. There just seem to be endless obstacles to be negotiated and egos to be smoothed. I suppose it's a natural part of a process that involves such creative collaboration, but I have developed a fairly cynical outlook and don't allow myself to get excited about a film until it is actually in production. David takes my attitude as a lack of interest in his career, but my view is that I don't allow myself to get caught up in the emotional rollercoaster of the business – I just enjoy the fruits when they finally ripen.

In February we decide to take a driving trip to Adelaide, where David has two new film partners and where he has also been invited as a guest of the local film festival. Driving is a great way for us to have some time out for ourselves, away from the pressures of computers and faxes and phones. We often have our most serious and constructive conversations in the car – also some of our worst fights, but at least we are cocooned from the world as we drive along admiring the diversity of the Australian countryside. During this trip, the drought is particularly apparent as we drive down through West Wyalong and then over the vast Hay Plains to Renmark, where we spend the night. We walk around this beautiful town on the Murray River and have a great meal in a local cafe, sharing a bottle of wine.

At times like this we are totally happy together and I wonder why our marriage has been floundering so badly. David is convinced that I am harbouring anger and bitterness from my perception that he let me down badly as a husband and father during the decades he was so focused on his career, almost to the
exclusion of all else. I believe, however, that while those shortcomings certainly caused me pain and resentment at the time, I am well over them now, that our problems have more to do with the ‘here and now' of our relationship and its continuation into the future.

I am still clinging to the hope that I can keep up the juggling act. Have my cake and eat it too. The fact that I can sit here in a restaurant with David having a lovely time, laughing and drinking wine and going back to the motel to make love, all the while knowing that I have recently embarked on a second affair in France, is utterly confusing to me. How can I do it and feel okay about myself? Have I finally uncovered a fundamental flaw in my character that has been dormant all these years? Am I turning into my father – the man of whom I have always been so critical, a serial philanderer who did what he wanted to pleasure himself without apparent thought or concern for the feelings of others?

I don't sleep very well any more and it's not surprising. I usually get off to sleep okay but wake in the middle of the night and spend an hour or so contemplating life. Not just my own messed up situation but life in general. My children and grandchildren. The world, poverty, pollution. Refugees and the fact that human kindness is on the decline. The fact that we now seem to care more for our bank balances than our neighbours. I have turned into a mid-life midnight worrier, and it shows on my face every morning.

Perhaps it is normal that at this stage of our lives we start to worry more about broader issues. When our children are no longer our responsibility we widen our concerns. Look at the big picture. I know that a lot of my friends report the same
night-time restlessness. Or could it just be that as we age we seem to need less sleep?

One night during the dark hours before dawn I contemplate the nature of love. I recall so vividly my first love as a teenager. How utterly overwhelming the sensation, how completely I drowned in it and allowed myself to be swept along. I recall too the love I felt for David in our early years together. Not quite as intense as first love but certainly deep and satisfying. I felt protected and secure and this was reinforced by the birth of our first two children.

Motherlove. There are no words to describe the force of it. The love of a child leaves all other loves behind in its wake and remains a permanent, lifelong fixture. As a mother it becomes obvious that it is possible to love more than one person at a time. I recall being fearful when pregnant with my second child. Worrying how I was going to find love for this new baby when I was already so much in love with our firstborn, our daughter Miriam. I even went into labour worrying, but my fears were instantly allayed at the moment of Aaron's birth. Here was the same love all over again. No less potent.

Grandchildren also bring their own love in spadefuls. It's overwhelming. I can sit at the dining room table with the entire menagerie and look from face to face with the confident knowledge that I love every one of them totally. And David too. How fortunate am I.

Could it be that I can love more than one man? Two perhaps, or even three at the same time? Could I move easily from one to another, without remorse, savouring the individual and special relationship that I have with each? Does sexual love have to be exclusive? Just as I am able to love each of my children individually,
am I also capable of loving various men in my life without one relationship detracting from another? Each lover has offered something different and unique. Can any one man give a woman all the things she needs (or would like to have) from a relationship? Can any one woman totally satisfy a man?

Of course I am not the first woman to contemplate this complex issue. I read with fascination the fictional prose and memoirs of Anaïs Nin, who in the 1940s was doing things that I have never even dreamt of. As I read her books I am amazed at how similar we are in our thought processes. A few years back I would have read her books with distaste, regarding her as both selfish and immoral. Now I have an insight into her passion for life and her desire to explore so many possibilities. She writes so poignantly about her love for her husband and in the same breath about her compelling attraction for other men. Her words jump off the page at me. I could have written them myself:

‘The impetus to grow and live intensely is so powerful in me I cannot resist it. I will work. I will love my husband but I will fulfil myself.'

A Spy in the House of Love
, Anaïs Nin, 1952

Was her behaviour outrageous and self-destructive? Or had she liberated herself from the constraints of convention and opened her heart and her mind and her body to all the excitement that life has to offer?

I also loved reading Nigel Nicolson's
Portrait of a Marriage
, about his mother Vita Sackville West's adulterous affairs yet never-ending love for her husband Harold Nicolson. And the writings of Charmian Clift about her love affairs and lifelong bond to her husband George Johnston. These stories haunt me.

Am I just wildly trying to justify my behaviour? I don't know. I don't know anything any more. I like to think I am in control of my life but I am dangerously on the edge of a precipice and at any moment I could fall.

While we are in South Australia I get a call from my publisher's publicist, Jane Novak, to say that the ABC's ‘Australian Story' would like to film a program with us. They have been sent an unedited advance of
Last Tango
and are interested in making a documentary on the contents of the book. Jane assures me that it is entirely up to us, but that it would be good for the book if we agreed. Very good.

I keep the request to myself for a day or two while I mull it over. I know David will be less than enthusiastic and I don't want it to spoil our time away. Back at the farm, I broach the subject with David and he responds exactly as I would have expected.

‘Don't be mad, they will crucify us,' he says. ‘You've been working in the media long enough to know the story they want. They'll just want to highlight the affair.'

I know he's probably right but I go ahead and phone the researcher, just to test the water.

A very pleasant young man talks to me about the book. I ask if he has read the first book and if he knows the rest of the story.
The lead-up to my leaving for France in 2000. The discovery of my long-lost sister Margaret. My family background. The suicides and alcoholism.

‘No,' he says, ‘but I will do so immediately.'

He seems keen to get his head around the whole story.

A few days later we talk again. I explain in some detail that we are very concerned that the story will place too much emphasis on our troubled marriage and the affair mentioned in
Last Tango
and not give enough weight to other aspects of the saga.

He assures me this isn't the case. That they are keen to shoot a balanced account of our recent life mingled with all the background and colour described in both books. He promises it won't just be a beat-up about a grandmother who went to France and had a fling.

David is still very resistant to the idea. He is convinced we will have no control over the content of the film and that they will manipulate us to get the story they want. We both have a great respect for ‘Australian Story' and love some of the programs they have made over the years. But of late we are of the opinion that they have gone downmarket, choosing subjects more for their sensational value rather than for the worthiness of their subjects. Like David, I fear we fall into the sensational category.

In talking with David about the pros and cons of being filmed, I point out that it would be churlish of me to write honestly and candidly about our lives in my book then refuse to discuss it any further with the media. I also point out that we are going to have to face all sorts of questions and interviews when the book comes out and that surely, of all the media, ‘Australian Story' will be our best opportunity to get our viewpoints across.

David reiterates that he would prefer to ‘maintain a dignified silence'.

After continued lengthy discussions with the researcher, however, we progress to the next stage, which is to meet with the proposed producer, Janine Hosking. Janine has won awards for her work and has a great reputation as an honest filmmaker. We meet her separately – she comes to the farm for a day to see me and discuss the program and then she has a get-together with David a few days later while he is in Sydney at meetings. We both like her. I trust her, but David is still less than confident that we will be presented in a balanced light. However, Janine assures us that she will do her best to represent us fairly and not produce a beat-up.

The timing is to be critical because I am leaving for France in less than five weeks. The ABC needs to spend about ten days filming with us, and I realise our life will not be our own between now and when I get on the plane. But I feel quite comfortable that Janine will tell the story with integrity. David still has grave reservations about the whole thing.

‘Just imagine how this is going to be for us,' he says. ‘Instead of putting the whole episode behind us, we are dragging it on and on. First with the book and now with the film. It's madness.'

He is right, of course, but I'm not prepared to admit it to myself. I see our differing perspectives as a representation of our opposite personalities. David always taking the negative view. Me always taking the positive. I rationalise that if the book sells well it may in some way compensate for the pain it has caused.

With hindsight, totally skewed logic.

Our lives are invaded by the ‘Australian Story' film crew. Anyone who has been involved in the making of a documentary will know what it's like, and we of all people should have realised the time implications of saying ‘yes'. David's experience as a filmmaker and my nine years with ‘Gardening Australia' have given us much more insight than most, but even so we are shocked at the intensity of the invasion.