FAMILY BREAKDOWN... (part 2).

It would be a miserable Christmas and New Year for us.  We had no idea where our sister had gone but we did realize that she had run away and not been abducted.

From me, my parents found out that our sister had been secretly seeing John Morrison each day after school.  From my older sister we found out that during our trip to England that my Dad had kept our middle sister a virtual prisoner in the house, as much as he could.  Not allowing her to go out on weekends, coming home early from work to make sure she was at home studying, cleaning and cooking.  My older sister also told us that the whole time we were away was a constant battle between my father and middle sister. My older sister had spent most of the time with her work friends to avoid the hostile environment.

Some time towards the middle of January we discovered that my sister had been on the passenger list for a Qantas flight to England on the evening she had disappeared.  She was 16 and as far as we knew did not have a passport nor the money to travel there.

That was when my father confessed not only to his autocratic treatment of her during our trip but also revealed how she could have acquired a passport.  My parents kept all their documents in a locked metal box in their bedroom cupboard.  Dad confessed that whilst Mum and I were away he hadn't been able to find the key, but assumed that Mum had taken it when she took her passport.  The key had cleverly appeared a few days after our return.

My parents, armed with this knowledge made no attempt to contact the police.  Either about the fact that John's parents must have played a part (they had used his passport to forge his signature on the documents required to grant my sister a passport). nor that John had technically abducted a minor.

My older sister continued to stay out as much as possible while I was stuck at home watching my parents breakdown.  Mum was constantly crying or blaming my father for what had happened.  My father was constantly angry and depressed and found every opportunity to take his frustrations out on me.

One day, while the Morrisons were at work, my mother ran down and intercepted their mail.  Amazingly there was a letter from my sister amongst the mail.  This letter told us that John and my sister had traveled to Scotland where they had been legally married in Gretna Green.  This is a famous town where for centuries it has been legal to be married by the village blacksmith!  It also gave us an address to write to.....

This my mother stupidly did.  Of course we received no reply from my sister but from John's parents we were to go through living hell.  My mother and I were in the local shop a few days later and Mrs Morrison flew through the door, grabbed my mother by the throat, called her a 'fucking thieving slut' before slapping her across the face and pushing her over the magazine rack onto the floor.  This happened in a shop full of our neighbours.  Again my mother did nothing except to pick herself up as calmly as she could and leave the shop.

Our neighbours also copped abuse.  The access road became a track of terror.  The Pitt Bulls were left out all day and began ravaging the neighbours gardens.  They even buried wood with nails sticking out into the access road and two of our neighbours had punctured tyres.  Unlike my parents our neighbours called the police.  They also began to have less and less contact with us, naturally.  Even my mother's best friend, our gay neighbour eventually told my mother it was safer for him to stay away, this shattered her.

One late afternoon as I was walking the dogs, the Morrisons drove past, screeched to a halt and Mrs Morrison got out with a large tyre lever and went for me.  Terrified I released the dogs and began running.  Round and round one of our neighbours houses, screaming and banging on their front door with each circle.  This mad 40 something year old women chasing me and calling me a 'fucking little poofter'.  My neighbours eventually rescued me, but again my parents let the incident go.

So mum cried.  Dad started drinking.  Night after night crying, drinking and arguing.  Until one night it got so heated my father attacked my mother with a kitchen knife and she ran screaming down the road in her nightgown to the same neighbours.  I was left with a drunken, sobbing father.  I was so upset and angry that I picked up a lamp and attacked my father.  Our neighbour arrived just in time to stop me from really hurting him.

So that was our life, eventually things got better but would never be the same between any of us, at least until after I had left home.  My sister and John returned towards the end of the year, but except for me we would only get a glimpse of her occasionally leaving in the car or returning.  For the next year every time we stepped onto our front verandah we would look down and see their house and know she was there. I used the cliff top track and a secret hiding place which I constructed from branches where often I would go and watch the family in their kitchen or back garden. longing to talk with my sister but knowing I probably never would.