Escaping Read online

  But as the family collapsed under the weight of a very messy separation, I found that I was becoming too involved in problems that had no bearing on my own life. I was under such strain that I was smoking three packets of Gauloise cigarettes a day — a habit that would take me a lot of time and energy to break. Jack and Sheilagh came to visit and could see that living in Le Vésinet was doing me no good, so they organised for me to stay with the Bayles in Chamonix, while their younger daughter Marie went to stay with them in Sydney (and ended up moving there permanently). Come September, I handed in my notice, breathed a sigh of relief and left the Parisian family to the horror of their own making. The two little girls, Pascale and Sophie, waved goodbye, resigned to the fact that I had just been a transient figure in their lives, while the chaos surrounding them and their parents would continue for years.

  After several months with the Bayles during the best of the snow season, including a magical Christmas, my cash flow was drying up. The measly wages earned during my Parisian stay had been quickly spent during the summer on a three-week budget holiday in the Greek islands while the little girls were visiting their grandparents in the south of France. I was reluctant to spend any more time living off people’s goodwill. Plus, Kate was expecting a baby and I wanted to be home for the birth in early April. My goal of living in France for almost a full year had been achieved; it was time I faced up to my future.

  Back in Sydney, two main options awaited me: more than three years doing a Law degree — if I was accepted into the course — or a one-year teaching diploma. I’d decided that language ability alone wasn’t a path to an exciting career; after all, I wasn’t a native speaker. Plus, travel continued to beckon, and the thought of working in an office with fixed hours made me queasy. I was self-indulgent and spoilt. The realities of life were to be put off for as long as possible; further study seemed the easiest course of action.

  The rules of teaching scholarships had recently changed, and I was no longer obliged to work as a teacher, but I still felt I owed something, even if only for a short period, to the State government that had given me all that money. My parents were expecting me to do something with my degree and this seemed to be their preferred option. With a slightly heavy heart I made up my mind to train as a language teacher.

  So I enrolled in a Diploma of Education with no clear idea of where it would take me. Teaching would be a springboard into some other, as yet undecided, area. Three years maximum and then I would force myself to quit and move on to a different career. Sitting at the back of one of the rare classes I actually managed to attend, I made a list of my achievements, hoping it would help me to decide on my next step:

  1. French — High Distinction

  2. Italian — barely a Pass

  3. German — 100% Fail

  4. Ability to teach — Distinction (when I put in some effort)

  5. Ability to concentrate — Fail (I couldn’t stop thinking about sex)

  6. Managed bank balance — dismal Fail

  7. Strong legs and abdomen — Credit (I had always maintained a strenuous gym routine, even before the days of pumping music and G-string leotards)

  8. Cleaning ovens — High Distinction.

  The picture wasn’t as rosy as I had hoped. It was gradually dawning on me, during my occasional appearances at lectures, that my ability to still bend like a pretzel and my strong thighs and abdomen were not going to lead to a distinguished future in circus performing. Finally the responsibility of becoming a decent teacher was beginning to weigh heavily on my thoughts.

  My fluency in Italian was still abysmal. I wanted to achieve the same level of competency as I had in French. The day my university course ended, I was on a plane heading towards Florence to enrol in an Italian language and culture course that would take three months. The language school in Florence had found me some accommodation with an Italian family at the Porta Romana, the southern gate of the city. Once again I was on the move.

  The schedule at the school was hectic, stretching my mind from subjunctive clauses to early Renaissance art. Compared with studying languages in the stifling atmosphere of Sydney University, learning lists of irregular verbs in Florence gave me a strange sense of pleasure, as did dates of historical significance.

  During my rare free time, I learnt other Italian skills of equal value, courtesy of my hostess, Signora Bruni: how to make gnocchi and a variety of different pasta shapes, and sauces to go with them.

  Signora Bruni found it inconceivable that I had travelled halfway around the world to learn Italian when I should be hellbent on finding a husband. In her eyes, at the ripe old age of twenty-two, I had almost missed the boat. And every Italian woman knows that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

  Cooking was a central part of Signora Bruni’s life. Every day she would go down to the local market swinging her wicker basket, then bring it back full of fresh herbs and vegetables and tomatoes on the vine. Steaming vats of these tomatoes would be cooked into various sauces and vegetables would be prepared for the midday meal. A pot of chicken stock was always simmering away on the back burner, ready to be used to moisten a thick sauce or drizzle over a roast in the oven. Pale yellow zucchini or pumpkin flowers were lovingly stuffed with soft cheeses and herbs and later deep-fried for the primo piatto (first course).

  In the interests of improving my marriage prospects, she tried to pass on some of her culinary skills to me. Sadly, though, my gnocchi agli spinacci (miniature spinach-flavoured potato dumplings) always ended up looking and tasting like green balls of sputum; rather than floating to the top of the boiling water, mine would steadfastly refuse to budge from the bottom of the saucepan and would congeal into a horrid mess. ‘Cara mia, you will never learn to make a man contento!’ she would howl with disgust. As I squirted some ketchup over my lifeless gnocchi I realised that to truly understand someone else’s culture and history requires close to a lifetime.

  At the end of three months, Signora Bruni kissed me on the cheek and wished me good luck. She and Luisa, her very young daughter-in-law, had given me a wonderful new hairdo to take back to Sydney for my new profession as a language teacher. Even though I wouldn’t be attracting anyone with my culinary repertoire, this Italian hairstyle would hopefully have potential suitors queuing up around the block for my hand. Meeting me at the airport, my horrified parents thought that I might attract another type of suitor!

  The year 1981 began for me with big shoulder pads, big hair (I really loved that Italian look!) and the experience of finally becoming a teacher; regrettably, plenty of photographic proof exists of all three. For what seemed like an eternity, I tried to wait patiently for my first teaching appointment in the knowledge that I could be sent anywhere in the vast State of New South Wales.

  Two of my teachers for Years Eleven and Twelve, my German teacher Judy Spicer and French teacher Bev Tomson, put me forward as a candidate for an upcoming position at Mosman High School. The position was for someone to teach three languages: French, German and Italian — which they had introduced to seal my appointment. Their recommendation met with success. I couldn’t believe my luck; my first teaching position would be at my former high school, and with teachers I held in high esteem. It was better than winning the lottery!

  My first year of teaching was an enjoyable one, though extremely daunting when I realised that my senior pupils were only a few years younger than I was. I took the responsibility of my first job very seriously, and would spend hours preparing worksheets and marking assignments. In this area of my life, at least, I was starting to grow up. Since I had left school the language curriculum had changed radically. It was no longer solely based on grammar; all aspects of learning a language were taught and examined. Students had to be able to understand the spoken language and maintain a basic conversation with a passable accent. Hours were devoted to marking dialogues from cassettes or short talks presented in front of the class, with students dressed as saucy French maids or baguette-carrying youths.
One forty-minute lesson per week was devoted to culture and history, so the junior Italian classes learnt to make pasta, while the French classes enjoyed the delights of crêpe making and eating. The language department was firing on all cylinders, with Judy, Bev and me trying to outdo each other with new ideas. My two mentors showed me the pitfalls to avoid and the shortcuts to take and made my first year of teaching a positive joy.

  In addition, my sudden financial independence gave me my first real taste of freedom. I moved out into a tiny apartment within easy walking distance of the school and local shops. Finally I had a place of my own, where I could get away with all those things that had been off limits under my parents’ roof!

  My desperate search for Mr Right had long been taking me in the wrong direction. Like many sisters, I coveted what Kate had: a strapping and good-looking surfer boy. However, at this stage the responsibility of being a young bride and mother was not necessarily my aim. I would have settled for some regular male companionship. Sydney was rapidly becoming one of the largest gay cities in the southern hemisphere, and it certainly felt like it when I went out with girlfriends to nightclubs and bars. The girls were on the prowl but there was no decent prey in sight. I watched with dismay as my friends lowered their expectations just so they could have some heterosexual company — and unfortunately, so did I. I tried to meet Mr Right, but until he showed up, settling for Mr Wrong seemed a better alternative. Countless unnamed males passed through my bed; it was sometimes easier to enjoy some hours of mindless sex than to listen to them drone on about inane subjects that held no interest for me. Strange that I was always exceedingly careful about what I put on my feet, spending hours selecting a pair of Italian stilettos, but was not nearly so circumspect when it came to choosing things for other parts of my anatomy.

  Nowadays my behaviour would be regarded as extremely promiscuous, but it was much more acceptable back then. Not to my sister Kate, though.

  ‘How can you be so irresponsible?’ she exclaimed. ‘You go from man to man. You fling yourself around like a Frisbee. You’ve never known an exclusive relationship. I bet you don’t know their names half the time.’ I couldn’t argue with the truth.

  My students kept encouraging me to go out with another member of staff. They were fed up with seeing me arrive with a tear-stained face from yet another failed romance, or hiding behind black sunglasses, having only arrived home an hour before school started.

  On the last day of term at the end of my first year of teaching, all the members of staff were going to the Mosman Rowing Club for Christmas drinks. Hidden in a corner was the very beautiful Art teacher, Elizabeth, and after a while I noticed that she was waving to me to come over. (Years later I found out she had actually been waving me away!) She introduced me to her companion, Ray, who had shared a flat with her when they were both university students ten years beforehand; he now had a high-powered job in the financial sector. We went through the usual chitchat about our likes and dislikes. I adore men with huge IQs and I could tell that his was enormous. I leant over to him, saying, ‘Tell me, Ray, what are you really passionate about?’

  As he took my hand, my bones melted and I could feel myself sliding off the chair. ‘Actually, I love Latin, but I think that I could be very passionate about you.’

  My heart stopped. I couldn’t breathe. Time stood still. I wanted him to sweep me away. Kiss me. Touch me. Hello, Mr Right.

  ‘Maybe you should be my Latin Lover.’ Those words sealed my fate. My heart was lost forever.

  Ray was my senior by nine years and everything he had to say was remarkable, clever and funny. He had a wide knowledge of art, but Latin was his real love, although his work commitments did not allow him enough time to study it officially. It never occurred to me that evening that my ability to discern anyone’s character — behaviour, temperament, let alone moral fibre — was partially obscured by my alcohol consumption. All the men I had wasted time on in recent times now seemed young and insignificant, mere striplings, compared with this wonderful strong man. He dominated and overpowered me.

  The first time my mother met Ray she took me aside and said that he had a weak chin and narrow beady eyes, and she could tell he would eventually prove himself unworthy of me. My father was slightly blunter, telling me that he was a slimy alcoholic moron who was trying to lead his daughter astray. We agreed to disagree. They waited patiently for me to get over this first romance. I didn’t want to be a drama queen, but at the time I felt I would stop breathing if he weren’t in my life.

  Playing hard to get, I became available only on Thursday and Sunday nights. During his university studies, Ray had become an exponent of both Tantric sex and financial planning. (If he had only known then that just one of these would give him lasting pleasure!) On other weeknights I would go out with girlfriends or by myself, drinking and dancing at the Pickled Possum, a rather seedy bar in Neutral Bay. I enjoyed Latin Ray’s company but I certainly wasn’t going to let him think I was wasting my time sitting at home, waiting for him to realise that I was the catch of his life.

  Before I knew it, more than a year had gone by and not much had changed. I couldn’t believe that I was already into my third year at Mosman High School and still no closer to finding a new and exciting career. I was stuck in teaching and a relationship that was going nowhere fast. The electricity between Ray and me was gradually being replaced by domesticity. He may have been intelligent and charming, but he could also be shallow, immature and a real slob, and he spent most of his time consumed by his work. The Latin Lover loved in descending order:

  1. His mother

  2. His job

  3. His football team

  4. His mates

  5. Baked lamb in front of TV with his hand resting on my remote control (not on my thigh)

  6. Exercise in the form of running or swimming or romantic entanglements with me.

  Making lists did my ego no good. I was past a reality check. Our relationship was doing neither of us any good. It soared to fantastic highs but also sank to depressingly awful lows. And things were complicated by my immaturity and insecurities as I found my way through my first major romance. The more I analysed it, the more I found myself equally guilty of game-playing and behaviour that was trivial and demeaning.

  Ray was a commitment-shy bachelor who enjoyed my company but couldn’t envisage a long-term future with me. I craved stability, and still clung to my dream of the perfect man, but for him there were no thoughts of a partner and children.

  I knew what I wanted; the challenge was finding a man who wanted the same thing. I was becoming more and more desperate to move on, both emotionally and professionally. My choices were clear:

  1. A radical change of career with a limitless supply of new men; or

  2. Seriously contemplate some of the bland and featureless men I saw daily as potential life partners.

  Teachers at the school often married each other. But to me, marrying a fellow teacher would be a fate worse than death. Would dinnertime conversation consist solely of timetables, changes in the syllabus and classroom supervision?

  The students in my classes continued to harangue me about my love life, figuring that anything was better than learning to conjugate irregular verbs. They felt they had the perfect solution to my problems.

  ‘Miss, you should go out with the Geography teacher. His car is so cool.’ Cars had never been of huge interest to me, but according to the students’ grapevine, Norman Taylor had a ridiculous midnight-blue sports car, slung low to the ground.

  Norman was certainly not your average Geography teacher. The staff-room gossip had filled me in with a thumbnail sketch of his life. As a young man straight out of school, he had taken time out before heading off to university and gone to San Francisco to wear flowers in his hair, as the song says — only to find that the hippy movement was over and the sixties had moved into the seventies. He managed to find work shifting large amplifiers for bands when they needed an extra pair of hands. Post-hi
ppies, tourists and the general flotsam and jetsam washed up along the Bay to listen to the music booming from the next generation of musicians — musicians of often limited talent but maximum youthful exuberance. Everyone from Carlos Santana and the Steve Miller Band to Ray Charles, Linda Ronstadt and the Manhattan Transfer were packing the music lovers into venues like sardines. The music scene on the west coast of America was taking off in a big way.

  One night the tour manager of one of the bands tried freebasing cocaine while sky-high on heroin. The result was not pretty, as his tender arteries, already weakened by excessive abuse of grade-one narcotics, exploded simultaneously, sending him into an immediate coma from which he never recovered. The band turned to Norman to take over the job as tour manager.

  By the end of the tour, Norman had decided his university degree could wait; for the time being he would do the thing he knew best. Making endless lists and getting band members assembled together in a state of sobriety on a daily basis were things that he did brilliantly. Santana would pass the word on to the Steve Miller Band, and within a fortnight of his return to San Francisco after a tour he would be off on the road again.

  After almost a decade of this exhausting lifestyle, Norman realised that he needed a new profession where there were normal hours and normal people with normal problems — a job where he could still make loads of lists and have a neat and tidy desk. Norman enrolled at university and after four years gained a Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma of Education. He soon became an outstanding member of staff at Mosman High School, going on to win a prestigious teachers’ merit award a couple of years later. This meant more to him than all the years he had spent with famous rock stars back when he lived in the fast lane.