Early Married Life with Gerard

I started my life after my marriage broke up with the resolve I would not marry again without marrying a rich man or at least to my advantage. Very cynical of me.

At first my time was taken up with getting well from the surgery. I was very unwell after it, and it took me some time to get well. Elizabeth was at school and Pierre was nearly 5, so I had to think of the future. I had the help of my parents who supported me through the first few months. I filed for divorce with a local solicitor. I applied for and got the single mother’s benefit. I had just enough money to live on if I had no extra costs. Most of my funds went to rent and board to my father. It was just as well I knew how to sew.

One day I decided to get my rings valued. Michel had said they were valuable and to my shock I found they were just paste and were worth about $5. I did not know if he was duped or he had duped me. It was a great shock as I was relying on them to raise funds. I had considered the rings a nest egg in bad times and I found they were worth nothing.

To fill in my time and to get some interest, I decided to join the Army Reserve, if they would have me. I hid the fact that I was sometimes not well. I was still able to do so, and as it was a part time job I presume that they did not care that much anyway. They didn't and I went on an initial training course for a fortnight before settling in at the office of the local Reserve unit at Sutherland. The money I got did not affect my single mother’s pension and was not taxable. It was interesting and I was meeting some nice people, mostly men.

In the meantime my relationship with Michel went from bad to worse. After the initial shock of me leaving had worn off, he had contacted a solicitor and had demanded custody of the children. I had already had sole custody of the children from the episode a few years back when he had threatened to take them away to Lebanon, and this was obviously a vexatious attempt to upset me. He accused me and my parents of being unfit to look after the children. This came to a head about six to nine months after we had separated. The court ordered the children be examined by a psychologist – without me – and I and my parents were interviewed at our home. It was a very intrusive time for all of us, as I was being accused of being an unfit mother, after being a wife and mother for seven years. The accusation also targeted my parents –as Michel had disliked them from the very beginning I was not surprised at this gambit, however it did cause an extra level of stress for all of us. I wondered if my methods of rearing children, copied from my parents, were that bad – the accusation had me worried. However it turned out to be the equivalent of a vexatious mother’s accusation of child abuse against a father in order to prevent access or custody – quite a few of these accusations are without foundation and this was the same. The report tendered to the court, finally, told the court that the children were being looked after very well, that there was nothing wrong with the care I or their grandparents were giving them, and that they were the most brain washed children he had come across for a long time. Michel had been brainwashing them whenever he had them, every weekend – every second week for the whole weekend and every other week on the Sunday. The custody battle ended with that – I was awarded sole custody, with him having access.

The access visits were not always smooth and a few times the Police were called to settle arguments that started between us. The children acted up when they came back from these weekends and it always took a few days for them to settle down again. It can’t have been easy for them: caught between the two of us. I was as scrupulous as possible about not disparaging him in front of them; I felt it better that they make up their own mind about him when they were old enough; and in the meantime it would not help if I said bad things about him to their faces. They had a right to love their father. Life was hard enough for them without a tug of war with mother against father. I know their father was always putting me down; this was part of the reason why they acted up on Sunday nights when they got home – their love for both their parents was being tugged, pushed and pulled by their father in particular. He was making them doubt me, and I think that must have been very hard for them.

In the meantime, I was attending the Army Reserve and had started to go out with a few of the men there. I had a few one night stands with a few men that I went out with – I kept it quiet and did not make a display of my activities, so I did not get a reputation (or at least I don’t think I did). One of the men I remember in particular as a very nice Indian man called Michael (not the best name for a man wanting to go out with me to have) and he pursued me until it became very obvious that I was going out with Gerard. He sent me flowers again and again, and rang me continuously. I had sex with him once, and while he was a nice man, I did not feel any connection with him. Another, called Ian, was a nice guy who was very laid back – so laid back, in the end that I could not really like him much. He came to the house and my parents took to him; however when it came to sex he was very much the male chauvinist – it was wham bam thank you ma’am and never a thought for me – he just rolled over and went to sleep, to my great surprise. I never went out with him again. I was heavily into activities at the Army Reserve, working there occasionally during the week, when pays had to be made up, and going on a course firstly as a recruit and secondly to do the Company Clerk Course.

In the September after I had left Michel, I had surgery to fix haemorrhoids, which had been bothering me since I had had the children. It was after this, while I was still convalescing that I was walking home from voting one Saturday that I met Gerard, a fellow soldier from the local Reserve Depot. I hardly knew him, knowing only that he was one of two brothers with the same initials, so they had to be referred to with their full names. I had to ask him if he was Gerald or Gerard. He offered to take me home and then asked me out on the following day. I had to refuse as I was still suffering from the surgery, so I deferred for a week.

We went out for the first time the following week and by the end of the following weekend - the October long weekend – he had asked me what I was doing with the rest of my life. We were inseparable from then on; apart from my duties to my children. Gerard and I had begun to plan a life together; I told him I could not have any more children, I had had my tubes burned and I did not want more children anyway. Gerard replied he did not care for children anyway; having grown up with his nieces and nephews under foot he had had his fill of children. There were plenty of children in his family anyway.

Gerard came from a large family living in Heathcote – the youngest son of a family of 10 children, the eldest being a full generation older than he. His mother was bigoted Catholic matriarch who expected to have her wishes obeyed, including the fact that she did not like me: I was already married, had children – in fact I had a scarlet “A” attached to my back. She never took to me in all the time I knew her. Gerard’s father was a little Irishman who was vehemently catholic and was willing to force his children – especially Gerard - to attend church and live as a Catholic. Gerard had at that point moved home in a hiatus between living with several of his siblings and moving into a place of his own in preparation to marrying me. It was a strained time as he had continuous disagreements with his parents. It solidified with a partial truce about me once we had married.

Once Pierre had gone to school in the February of 1981, I went to Tech, learning secretarial skills: typing, shorthand, accounting skills etc. It was not easy to be back at school and it was made all the harder when I broke my arm ice skating after a few months.

The local doctor did not believe my appeals that the arm needed an x-ray, and I persevered with the course with the bad arm. Years later I found that the arm was very broken and it healed badly, leaving me with an occasional problem if I lifted heavy things with it: the tendon would lock around the healed break and I need to unlock it by twisting the arm slightly. I was unlucky in my response to broken bones – I did not faint if one touched my broken bone – this was not to help me in the future. Another nasty accident ice skating was when I dislocated my right knee, falling on it on the ice. I immediately knocked it back into place, but the damage was done. I told the GP, the same one as for the arm, but he didn’t believe me and nothing was done. When I went to the Army barracks for initial and clerks’ training, I was unable complete the drill exercises as my knee swelled up. The army doctors told me that the damage was done when I dislocated it and it should have been immobilised for a period afterwards. I spent a lot of the second week of the initial training fortnight on crutches – which was in itself excruciatingly painful – because my knee had swollen to twice its size due to overuse in the drill exercises. Interestingly I have dyslexia of left/right, but managed to win a drill competition (probably because I knew I had to concentrate to even do it, so I was not complacent)

In July 1981 I was divorced and the property settlement gave me $10,000 which I invested in a mortgage with my solicitor. The next month I moved in with Gerard, two weeks after I got the job that I said I would get prior to moving in with him. I wanted to start on an equal footing with him.

Interestingly, Elizabeth had brought Herpes Varicella (chickenpox) home from school and we all caught it, myself, the two children, my brother Barney, who had just come home from prison, and my mother, who had it very severely. Her dose was so severe she ended up with scars from it, just like smallpox. I had it enough that it was obvious, but I was not really that sick with it. It came to a head the week I had to attend court for the divorce. I recall Barney and I travelling into the city together and trying not to get too close to anyone because of it. I asked my solicitor if he had had chickenpox and he looked at me, and moved to another seat. I looked on the surface as if I had a bad case of acne, however if you knew, it was obvious.

In the August I felt sufficiently skilled to try for work. I got a job at first try; a job as an accounts clerk at a loan company subsidiary of a bank, CAGA. I was hired by a woman who believed women who were re-entering the workforce made better workers – they were more disciplined, having managed a household etc. She gave me my break into the world of business and I never looked back – I enjoyed the work and I learned quickly.

All through this time Gerard and I had attended the Army reserve unit at Sutherland and after a time it had become general knowledge that we were an item, despite our efforts in keeping it quiet. It was some time before his friends found out, and they were surprised. Gerard did not appear to be the ideal companion for me. It was almost a year before anyone found out, but the reaction when we announced we were getting married interested me. The news was met mostly with disbelief from everyone. The Commanding Officer had a word with me, and told me that I would be marrying beneath me, that Gerard was not suitable for me. I did not initially tell Gerard anything about this, and dismissed it. It appears that Gerard also got a talking-to, and was told I was too good for him and that we would never be happy. We told each other about these incidences about ten years later. It was not nice – it appears people misjudged Gerard; however he came over as a drunk “yobbo’, only interested in the next beer.

Gerard was a drinker and I didn’t realise until later how much he drank. He later told me that I saved him from the life of a drunkard. He did indeed drink a lot, and I tried to join him. However I was a very cheap drunk and the first time I got drunk – on a few glasses of bubbly – I was so sick I thought I was getting the liver complaint back again. I went to the doctor and was told I had a hangover. All I can say is that if people really got a hangover like I did that day they would not drink to excess ever. I never drank much after that but tried to keep Gerard company. That lasted for a few years but I always found that after a few glasses of whatever I would invariably fall asleep so it was counter productive – so I kept my drinking to a minimum. I rarely had a hangover. I found in later years I had an allergy to the preservatives added to wine and that I could drink a little of cider or mead with no trouble as preservatives are not added to these drinks.

I had decided that I would not leave the security of my parents’ home without a job first. It was a good idea, and I entered the “marriage” on equal terms. I was determined to begin as I wanted it to end – with equality in the marriage. Gerard had no quarrel with that. He had 5 sisters and was used to the idea of women being equal although he told me that his father beat his mother, which he could not understand, as she was bigger. I knew I would never experience being beaten, as he was evidently traumatised from it. It caused a lot of problems later that he was guilt-ridden and affected by these ructions in his parents’ marriage and their treatment of him.

Gerard and I came to our marriage with nothing between us. He had a misspent youth and had nothing except his car, which was paid off. I had nothing apart from the $10,000 which I did not touch. We found a place for rent in Jannali close to my parents so they could look after the children while I was at work. We set up house as if we were married – in fact we did not formally marry for a year. It was my caution that stopped us. I wanted to be very sure that it was the right thing to do. I had been burnt once before and I did not want to be burnt again.

Soon after we were settled, Gerard expressed a wish to get a motor cycle. He had not ridden since he had had an accident when he was 19 and had endured a court case over it, and was put on a good behaviour bond. I said why not, as several of my brothers were riders. He got a bike, and took me for a ride. I had never been on a motor bike before this, and I found it terrifying. He took me around Bate’s Drive, and up and over Sylvania, and it was the most terrifying moments of my life. I was so scared. He had no compassion for my fear and turned through the corners, scraping my boot as he went. I decided then and there that if I were to ride a bike I would ride my self, never on the back of anyone else.

That decision started a more than ten year relationship with bikes and biking. Within a few weeks, Gerard had bought me a 150cc Honda to learn to ride on. I had to have drink, the first time I got on it, however I learned to ride in about a week, and before I took my licence test, I had progressed to a 500cc Honda which I named Vladimir. I did the Stay-Upright course twice, before it was compulsory (at that point it was a new concept to have school for defensive riding). Since I had not the time to develop bad habits, I did well. Gerard did the courses with me to keep me company but found to his surprise that he was being criticised more than I was – he had developed bad habits, so the course had value for us both, so we repeated it two years later to confirm that there were no new bad habits. We joined a bikers’ club and started to go to rallies, riding up to 1,000 - 1,500 km a weekend – riding to a campsite, collecting a badge to say we had attended, and staying the night, mixing with the other tourers, and riding home the next day. My first rally was on the January long weekend of 1982, to Albury. It was a trial by fire for me. I had never gone so far in the car, let alone on a bike. It was hard work, but fun. We had found our joint hobby.

In the meantime the children had started to settle down and we commenced married life with the children attending access with their father on the weekends. He had the better deal of course. The visiting parent always does. He didn’t have to do anything but criticise my parenting and take them out and spoil them. Which he did, and Mondays were always difficult for us. The children always acted up after a visit with their father, and my resolve to not disparage him in front of them was sorely tested at times.

Pierre wet the bed. He was obviously anxious and disturbed and in the end I moved him to Sutherland North School, in an effort for him to shine by himself, in case he was inhibited by his sister’s scholarship. And he did begin to shine a little there. I know he particularly enjoyed being taken to school or being picked up by Gerard on his bike, as he was envied by his class mates, and he at last had something that made him liked at school.

I now know that the weekend access was used by Michel to brainwash the children. It is amazing to think that they lived a double life, with their father disparaging me at every opportunity. It cannot have been easy for them. I was a strict mother and demanded obedience and respect from my children. If they did not obey me, I had not hesitation in smacking them. Perhaps if I had my time over again, I would not be so strict, however that is the way I was reared and it is very hard to get away from that. I think it can be done, but it has to be a conscious and deliberate decision. In my case, I had my parents looking after the children after school, so it made sense to be consistent in our child rearing practices.

Gerard’s relationship with my children started coolly. He saw the children, he told me later, as little wogs, and didn’t like them much. He accepted them as part of the package: to get me he needed to accept the children, which he did. I asked the children to respect him as my husband, and to obey him as they would me. I told them they were not expected to love him or even like him, just to treat him with respect. Gerard took an active role in the children, as he had years of experience with nephews and nieces. In time the children became fond of him and he of them. Since I had no expectation of this occurring it came as a surprise to me. Once Gerard saw the children separate from their Lebanese-ness he began to like them.

We started to take the children with us on the bikes when we could, when they were free from access visits. They appeared to like it. I am not sure of this, as I am not sure they merely acted as if they liked it, for the sake of peace. I know their father would have liked to say something about the things they were doing however for some reason he did not. I wonder sometimes if he got advice on the subject and was told that there was nothing he could do, given he had tried and failed to get me disqualified in the past as a fit mother.

Elizabeth was lucky that her grandmother was willing to take her to dancing lessons after school twice a week. This started while I was living with Michel, and the connection continued after I left Bexley with my father taking Elizabeth in his car after work and Gerard and I took her to the Saturday lesson after we became a couple. She was very good at the dancing and performed in the end of year concerts and did her exams – doing well, especially once she had conquered her initial confidence problems. Larne become a lynchpin in the teacher’s operations by making a lot of the costumes for the end of year concerts and became very friendly with some of the other mothers.

For a while, my mother and I attended a private class with this teacher, after I had finished work, and did tap and ballet. We had both always wanted to do it, and it was lovely to be able to learn properly. We did this for about a year.

We bought Elizabeth a piano when she expressed a wish to learn, and found a teacher for her locally. She attended lessons for about a year and the teacher was very impressed with her progress. She was able to compose very early after starting to learn. She appeared to have an aptitude for musical things. Her school work was also very good and she was doing well in everything she did. She at least appeared to have adjusted to the divorce and my remarriage.

Gerard and I married a year to the day after we moved in together, solemnising the relationship with a marriage ceremony in front of a celebrant in our living room with Gerard’s sister Veronica and my brother Barney as witnesses. We did not tell the children, leaving the announcement of a year earlier to suffice. We told very few people, as we had announced our marriage when we moved in together. We went to dinner after the ceremony with the witnesses. We wore ordinary clothes and did not have a honeymoon. It was in some ways the perfect wedding – simple, easy and no fuss.

Our life was complicated by the access visits; however this was in our favour when we wanted to travel to rallies. We did most of our rally riding while the children were on access visits. However we did take the children with us at times, and sometimes we went out of our way to arrange with their father for them to be available for some of the trips we made, especially when we thought they might enjoy it. The children did appear to enjoy the rallies they attending especially as they were petted by the men, mostly unmarried, who attended the rallies. The environment sounded as if it would not be safe, however there were very few moments that I feared for my safety. Bikers on a whole whilst dangerous to others at times are nice to old ladies, look after children and rescue little kittens, even while drunk. The children became quite adept at riding with us.

They were very good passengers and once they learned why they had to sit a certain way, they were good pillions. I generally took Pierre with me, as he was smaller. We once had an accident together. We were riding through the National Park towards Stanwell Tops when I took a corner too fast and slid into the gravel on the side of the road. I had told the children to stay still if anything happened, reasoning that this would be the safer option than trying to get free, as it would only be counter productive. It worked in this instance as Pierre stayed still, most probably because there was no time to react. We slid, still on the bike, for a few feet, and then it stopped and we climbed out from under it. As he scrambled he grazed his knee. We got back on the bike, which was okay, and continued, on our way, none the worse for wear. The graze was the only injury.

One August we took the children out of school for a week and took a trip on the bikes around NSW looping around to Griffiths to see my half brother by the way. The trip was very good for us all – spending a whole week together and travelling. The trip was educational for the children. When we reached Hill End, we camped for the night and I sent the children up to the shop to buy supplies. I told them to buy certain things, but not if they were too expensive. They come back without onions, which rightly enough were too expensive. They were at that age, 5 and 7, old enough to judge these things for themselves.

I tried in this period to make the children as independent as possible.

One time just after we married, I enrolled Elizabeth in a school holiday acting school that she said she was interested in. However I could not take her as I was due to start work at the same time. So I had to rely on instructing her how to get there from my work [lace and meet the convenor at the bus stop. She apparently had no trouble getting to where she needed to go, but had trouble finding the bus stop to come back to my work in the afternoon. I got a phone call from her some time after I had expected her to arrive at my work, in a panic, trying to find the way back. I calmed her down and after another phone call and a long anxious wait from me she arrived, pleased that she managed it. I was so relieved, as I envisage her lost in the Central area of the city and not knowing how to get to me or to get home. I dared not leave work to go and look for her in case she managed to get to me and if I was not there she might have panicked more. I was proud of her and the incident, while at the time distressing, gave her a lot of confidence. She was able to attend the school for the rest of the week without my help.

Another time we left the children at Sutherland station and told them to catch a train to Jannali, where we were living, ring us from Jannali station to let us know they had arrived , and then to walk home. This was an exercise in ensuring they knew how to get home, and to ensure also that they knew how to use a public phone by themselves. They did it beautifully and we were very pleased with their independence.

Gerard and I had a very good marriage: we were sexually very compatible, we worked well together and we were very much in love, and very happy. We had left the Army Reserve after we married and we devoted ourselves to family live with the children (when they were with us) and to our hobby of biking when we were on our own. Our lives seemed to be taking a course for a happy future when several thing happened.