Eloquent Silence (2 page)

Our group’s discussion grows more serious from the foibles of her romantic situations. She controls the interaction and begins to center on her beliefs and ideals for marriage when she decides to settle down, which will not be for a long time yet,
sooo
long.

Suddenly it seemed to me like it was the first time in recent history that I had wanted to be the first person to leave the table. I wanted to escape outside into the night, to squash the balls of my hands into my eardrums and flee. But common courtesy dictates that I stay there until the meal is finished.

With her cheeks as bright as apricots, she tells us,

‘I’ll get married when the time’s right. I want a family, certainly. Some nice, well-behaved little children and a big, beautiful husband, not necessarily in that order.  But, well, I know what you said, that you’re divorced and everything, Sylvia, but that’s not my style. No siree. None of that divorcing business for me. When I marry it will be for life,’ she says half-sneeringly.

My temper rises at the platitude but I redouble my effort to remain calm at all costs.

She smiles, flicks her blonde hair back, sips her wine. I smile back, open my mouth and, thinking better of commenting, close it firmly, trying to remain calm in the face of her undoubted disapproval.

Despite my best efforts, however, my heart jumps into my throat and hammers vigorously, having lost my faith in the happily-ever-after scenario through long and difficult experience. I try to give the appearance of unflappable calm while my teeth clench in protest and fear of what I might say if I allow them to open. I take a great gulp of air in through my nose, swallow determinedly and try to steady my hands.

An answer runs through my head but I continue to smile to the best of my ability, silently digesting this information. How I would like to say,

‘Now why didn’t I think of that, Libby? Good for you! When I married I did so to produce two children to take away from the marital home and rear with little or no help from their father. I originally thought I was so lucky to have a husband and babies that for years I thought I could make the turmoil disappear and eventually make the whole situation come out right. So I endured all the angst and misery, accusations and penny-pinching against all odds and in the end had to accept defeat after being belted senseless for the umpteenth time, so I left him.’

But I was raised in an era when one didn’t cause a fuss or a make spectacle of oneself in public, remaining polite even when in danger of bursting with the attempt. I am furious and sullen, but remain close-mouthed.

This young woman is training to be a policewoman. Has she come to the part about domestic violence in her education yet? I doubt it by the sound of things.

Does she know how it is for women who have to hide in a empty allotments for hours in the middle of the night? Or on building sites amongst the rubble of rubbish skips, in portable on-site toilets and bricks? Or by a creek bank behind a grove of trees. To see her precious child badgered as ‘useless and thick’ because of deafness?

To watch a man order his children to take down their underclothes so that his leather belt will be more painfully effective across their buttocks, especially if he uses the buckle end?

Does she realize how it feels when you listen to a man tell your daughter she will be a prostitute by age fourteen because she is interested in the colors of nail polish?

To tell the child she will be a lesbian by then, as well. Loving one’s mother or sisters equates with being a lesbian and lesbianism runs through the family line as an inherited dysfunction? One can have the genetic predisposition as this little girl appears to have, claims the man of her dreams, father of her little brood. A female either carries the lesbianism gene or, by being exposed to the disorder, will ‘catch’ it from observation. The husband/father has not quite decided yet in which way this young child will be ‘contaminated,’ but he will make up his mind and the issue will be fought about again when the next moment of conflict arises.

Perhaps watching a small son being flogged because something has gone wrong for the father at work during the day. Some really strange women may feel unsettled and take it in their heads to search the yellow pages of the telephone directory for a lawyer the next day when the man has gone to work again. Depends on your level of commitment, of course. If you have married for life, for instance, you will simply go about your day, regardless of not being able to see out of one blackened eye or chew on one side of your mouth because your jaw is bruised and swollen.

If a woman is wrested to the floor with a man’s hands around her throat as he kneels over her to choke her, she may feel less than amicable towards him if and when he lets her up. Only ‘may’ mind you. Behind him on the floor the little boy tries to pull the man off his mother. The man flings out an arm. The child goes flying across the room. His temple connects with the corner of the piano leg. He falls to the floor, stunned. Is he concussed? Unconscious?

Perhaps that night the woman may not feel inclined to make love with her husband who is suffering from a fleeting sense of guilt and wants to make amends by having intercourse. If she is reluctant following the evening’s activities she will have to be prepared to pay a price, naturally enough. Rape is not illegal within the bonds of marriage.

Perhaps the usual harmony may be missing from the home for a day  or two but the couple have married for keeps, even if someone dies in the process. It will be the woman or a child. It will not be the Man Of The House, the MOTH.

Maybe I was slow on the uptake but I found it hard to accept the fact that this had to be our future because we were married for life. I was committed to this man for better or worse. So were my children who had come innocently into the world as beautiful, beautiful babies and did not ask to live that way.

How can a beloved, screaming, terrified little girl comprehend why you reach past the man to grab a bottle of sleeping pills out of the medicine cabinet so that you can escape everything, drift away into oblivion? How can the little child comprehend that even though you love her and her sibling with every fiber of your being, you cannot live in the manner in which you are being forced to live? You would simply rather be dead? By your own hand, though, not his.

The man is a sporting type and has football connections. He enjoys a ripping sporting life. Going to the Landsdown Football Club Dinner Dance is mandatory and the little woman must go too, like it or lump it. One of his drunken friends asks for three dances during the course of the evening. How to refuse without this being considered a downright insult to the drunken friend? The drunken husband? Impossible. Do the dances, don’t rush off when the drunken friend mauls you on the dance floor within everyone’s gaze. He’s your husband’s good buddy, for God’s sake.

Realize payment will be exacted later and it will not be easy.

Returning home in the early hours of the morning the husband starts—

‘Whore. Slut. Cunt. Bastard.’ Names he has bandied about a thousand times before. Run for your life. Head for the door. A scuffle ensues and suddenly you are whirling towards the far wall. How to get your head to miss the sharp corner of the wardrobe by a hair’s breadth? How not to have your skull split open like a ripe melon? How not to shudder and cower as you rise from the floor, the side of your face grazed against the wardrobe?

Thank God your stupid head did not split open exposing your thick skull that allows you to believe you have the right to be sharing the same atmosphere as your superior husband.

The next day the Missus is featuring another black eye, skinned cheek and huge bruises from the clutch marks on her arms.

‘Oh, Jesus, I don’t know. She bruises
sooo
easily,’ he tells her mother who is looking aghast at the injuries when she returns the children after babysitting them so the young married couple can have a nice evening out together. He is contrite, tears glistening in his eyes. It will never happen again. Until next time he goes off at a tangent.

Having another lovely evening out with friends, the couple go to the Commercial Hotel for a drink before going to the Catholic Debutante Ball. While the group of six sit in the lounge having the drinks, the commercial traveler who has sold you a vacuum cleaner at 2pm that very afternoon, passes by and climbs the stairs to the second floor where the bedrooms are located.

He says, ‘Good evening, Mrs. Schmidt,’ because he remembers you and the sale from six hours ago.

You reply, ‘Good evening,’ as he continues up the stairs towards his room. Your memory allows you to recall the event six hours ago and you can see no reason to openly snub the man just because your husband thinks you should.

At the ball, your husband refuses to speak to you. After a while, he commences nagging you, accusing you of an affair with the traveling salesman. On the dance floor, his voice is growing louder and louder and you are terrified that he will make a fool out of both of you before much longer.

Hastily, you grab your evening purse from the seat beside your friends and run out into the night to go home, hobbled in your long blue evening dress that you have made for yourself out of curtain material. Your husband wants to keep abreast of his more wealthy friends but refuses to give you money to buy better material or, Heaven forbid, an evening dress. Luckily you can sew adequately and you hope that any of his friends do not recognize that the material was originally meant for curtains.

When he notices that you have gone for the balance of the night, he comes roaring home and gives you the sound beating that you deserve for greeting the vacuum cleaner salesman with whom you must have had sex during the afternoon. He then forces you to have sex with him just in case you need further mastering.

He awakes next morning and greets his children who have been brought home by their aunt. Bacon and eggs, tomatoes and toast, are tossed around with alacrity. He is happy because he conceives that he has won a victory over you for some insubstantial reason that you cannot understand.

Your sister, who has had the children for the night and is placing their belongings onto the end of the kitchen table while eyeing him with hostility, asks how he enjoyed the ball.

‘I had a good time but Sylvia threw a wobbly late in the night,’ he says with a cheerful grin. ‘Cleared off and walked all the way home in high heels and her evening dress. Silly bugger.’

‘What about you, Sylvie. How did you enjoy yourself?’ your sister asks you.

‘Very nice thanks, Angela. Lovely ball, nice debs.’

‘Why are you limping?’ my sister asks me.

‘Oh I just had a bit of a fall,’ I reply a touch defensively.

‘Mmmm,’ my sister replies. ‘That would probably account for your black eye, your swollen jaw and the bruise on your arm, I suppose.’

‘Yes, Ange, it probably would. Thanks for babysitting,’ I smile at her tentatively, trying unsuccessfully to stop my bottom lip from trembling.

‘You’re welcome any time. Anything you need, any time you want,’ she says, reaching out to pat my hand. She looks deep into my eyes and I choke back hot tears.

‘I know, love. It’s okay.’ My family know but they will not interfere unless I ask them to and I am reluctant to do so as he is twice as strong as either of my brothers-in-law and far more agile and abrasive than my father. I will let sleeping dogs lie for as long as I am able because I fear the consequences of stirring him up further.

For a time he is in a condition of euphoric determination, resolving to be the best husband and father in the town. You know this will last approximately two days.

Another misdemeanor unwittingly committed by the little woman. A television set left on when children were taken for their baths becomes an occasion for an outburst of incredible rage. A large electric bar heater is full on in the lounge room. In fury he kicks it until it comes apart while you stand by wondering where so much blind rage originated. Red-hot pieces of broken element burn holes in the carpet while he goes to collect his gun.

The couple sit companionably together with the loaded gun against her temple for the next eight hours, all through the hours of the night as they tick slowly by, the children huddled in another room, asleep together for comfort.

Togetherness is the key to holding a marriage together, to this particular couple holding a marriage together, especially. So much bonding. Such a treat. So glad this is a lifetime commitment. How long is the life going to be? You are twenty-eight. That’s that length of your life so far. Will you hit thirty without a hole being blown in your skull?

At four a.m. he has fallen asleep. Fortunately, he has dropped the gun without its going
BANG
! and blowing your stupid head off. And your stupid brains out. He must get some rest as he and his good buddy are going to the city in a few hours’ time to spend a week watching the bowls tournament in the capital of the state. Such a relief to see the tail end of him and his drinking mate. A few days peace from terror.

You are finding this unendurable. Who could imagine why? You have been
sooo
committed to this man.

And now you sit in this restaurant a decade later, still dragging your past behind you like ghost of a lifetime past. But it is never past and never will be while you draw breath.

––––––––

I
t’s two in the morning and he hasn’t come home from his shopping expedition to the nearby city. Staring into the darkness for hours, thinking and wondering, eventually you hear a car in the driveway. He enters the bedroom, turns the overhead light on, almost blinding you for a moment until you see he is ripping the bedclothes down. He thrusts his finger roughly inside you to see if a deposit of seminal fluid has been made by any other man during his absence. He is very aggressive but he hasn’t been drinking. Where has he been, you wonder as you mop up the blood from brutal intercourse.

Or another night, drunk, he wakes and throws up all over you.

Next day it’s time to do some laundry. On the collar of his shirt is a red lipstick mark. Not your color at all. A different hue seeming to be placed there deliberately, dragged across the collar as a branding of possession.