Why is the bedroom so cold?
You've turned away on your side.
Is my timing that flawed?
Our respect runs so dry.
Yet there's still this appeal
That we've kept through our lives.
But love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.
We had 4 months of serenity. 4 months when life was almost normal, when we didn't seem to have a care in the world and 4 months where time seemed to take a step backwards to our early days when it was just the two of us. Looking after each other, being there for each other and seemingly having few cares in the world.
Finally I was able to openly invite our work mates around after shifts and spend time with quality friends of both of ours without having to worry about Matty getting annoyed or jealous. My weekend shifts were a joy. I loved my job and loved even more knowing that at the end of a shift I could ring home and tell Matty so and so was coming back with me. He would already have had a few hours sleep and was happy to get back into our normal social routine of late night smokes and listening to music with our friends. He even began joining in on the occasional smoke with us - it was his choice and I wasn't going to stop him trying to live a normal life.
Sadly for him, and me, a normal life wasn't going to be long for him. Over the years since he was first diagnosed HIV he had swung erratically between being healthy and unhealthy and between being in control and uncontrollable. It was just something that neither of us could predict. We tried to live for the moment whether it was good or bad and seemed to make the most of the good and take the bad head on. Times would rapidly change, almost without warning, and for both of us things would never be the same again.
It was the third week of the third school term of the year. I had finished my term at Glebe Public school and apart from the odd day when I was called in to work for them I wasn't getting much teaching work. Matty was at work and I had the Friday to myself. I had, as usual, gotten stoned, and spent the morning doing housework and had just returned from walking my dog when the phone rang.
It was Camperdown Public school wanting to know if I was available to come immediately and fill in for the rest of the day. It was only the urgency in the Principal's voice which led me to agree. It was around 11am and I was still stoned. I said I needed an hour before I could get there in which time I showered and straightened up as much as I could before walking the 15 minute walk to the school.
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| (The school is where the trees are and my street runs by the red building.) |
Walking down the corridor towards the classroom I was greeted with the sight of this poor lady literally running out of the classroom being chased by two young boys and the sound of major rioting coming from the classroom she had hurriedly vacated. The two boys chasing her were obviously Arabic, looked adorable with their big brown eyes, and she was obviously terrified. Remembering a phrase I had often heard the parents at Belmore North Public School say, I called out 'Yollah!' in a loud voice to the boys. I don't know the meaning but I knew that it was a phrase used by Arabic parents to control their children.....
The two boys stopped dead in their tracks and looked at me stunned. 'You speak our language?' one of them said. 'Yes I do', I replied. They turned from demons to angels in an instant. When I told them I was their new teacher they smiled and took my hand and led me to the classroom. It was in chaos. Children yelling, screaming, fighting and not one sitting at their desks. Definitely not what I had expected and definitely a challenge seeing as I had no work prepared.
Ali and Hassan, my new friends, went ahead and announced me. Walking in the class fell silent. Most of the children knew me from before and came rushing up to greet me. Phrases like ' thank god that old bitch is gone' and ' why did you leave us' ran around the room. Only one boy, a young aboriginal boy, stayed defiant and when all the others had returned to their seats he continued to run around the room defying me to chase him. Ali told me his name was David and instead of trying to stop him I simply said 'David, you can run around until lunchtime, but I am going to teach the rest of the class until then so I would be happier if you ran around outside'.
When the lunch bell rang I was proud to walk my new class out in orderly, well-behaved lines to the eating area where we were joined by my old teaching friend Carrol who had the Year 5/6 class. She scolded me for leaving them and said that from the start of the year she had pushed for the Principal to offer me a full time position as she was confident I was one of the few teachers she knew who could handle the position. I was back among friends. During the lunch break it was decided that the pregnant teacher would be given extended paid leave and that I was officially appointed to the position for the rest of the year I would stay there for two and a half years.
Matty's timing was as usual totally at the wrong time. I had winged my through the day at school and returned home with the old teacher's program ready to study it and begin planning my lesson schedule for the remainder of the year. Normally Matty wouldn't be home until around 5.30pm but at 4pm when I arrived home he was already there, looking white and drained.
He had had an uncontrollable nose bleed during work and had been sent home not long after I had left to go to school. He was both anxious and annoyed that I hadn't been home nor left him any indication of where I was going. It didn't matter that my day had been totally unplanned. It didn't matter that he was supposed to be at work while I had been out. All that mattered to him was that I had not been there for him when he needed me.
Although he was physically okay and there seemed to be no need to take him to the hospital, he was insistent that I had let him down. After the unexpected and roller - coaster day that I had been through I was in no mood to put up with his tantrums. I remember telling him to 'get a grip on himself' before he violently lashed out and punched me in the side of the head. He hit me so hard that it took a few minutes before I realised that I was bleeding severely and managed to drag my stunned self to the bathroom.
Looking in the mirror I was horrified to see that when he had punched me his ring had sliced through the top of my ear causing it to split and copious amounts of blood were pouring out and down the side of my face. There was so much blood that I was certain I would need to go to hospital. I didn't - the phone was in the same room as Matty and I was terrified that he would hit me again if I tried to use it. Instead I took a long shower, watching the water run red as it washed over my ear and down the drain until eventually the blood stopped.
I remember watching the sun start to set, seeing my dog running wildly around the abandoned concrete track of the velodrome and thinking to myself that things between Matty and I had come to an end. I couldn't put up with his beatings and abuse any longer and I had to make a decision to start a life for my self even if that meant going without drugs and living in a hostel for a few months. It was a decision I dreaded and didn't want to have to make.
Out of the blue someone was calling out to me, 'Mr C', Mr C.....'. When I looked up I saw one of my new class members brother coming towards me. Nuno was a gorgeous young 17 year old who I knew from his occasional visits to pick up one of his younger brothers or sisters from Camperdown after school. I had never formally met him but knew him by sight, The family were Portuguese immigrants who lived less than a block away from me on the same street. They were a family with 9 children, of whom Nuno was the eldest, and desperately poor. Both parents worked. His mother at the hospital doing either day or night shifts and his father worked at a factory doing 12 hour shifts. Nuno was the eldest and had left school a year before stumbling between poorly paid but hard working jobs or on unemployment benefits.
He let his dog run with my dog and sat down next to me. Full of excitement and praise. 'Oh my brother Jack is so happy you are his new teacher, my mother is so happy he get good teacher.....' Nuno had come to Australia when he was 12. Speaking no English his schooling had been minimal, and interrupted as he was the oldest and often had to miss school to look after his siblings while his parents were working, he didn't have much of a chance in life and even today I wonder if he has made something of himself or ended up dead, or behind bars?
I know it was wrong, I know it was illegal, but it was definitely what I needed. Finally someone after all those long, lonely years understanding me and just being kind because they saw me as both valuable and vulnerable. It was the start of both a short platonic friendship and a wake up call to me that I was actually a person with something to give to the world besides blind obedience.......the next morning would be the start of a new me.
Nuno became my new best friend. We would meet two or three times a week to walk our dogs together, letting them run freely around while we sat and talked. I explained to Nuno that as his brother's teacher I couldn't give him any marijuana and he didn't have to feel the need to share with me. It was less of a legal issue than a moral issue to me. He was almost a grown man and at his age I was working the streets and taking any drug that was offered to me. As a teacher, and a friend, I didn't feel that it was right to be leading him up the same path.
He was non-plussed and said he always had stuff to share with me. I thought he was buying it, but would later find out that he was dealing for 'friends' of his and this is how he made extra money and got marijuana to smoke. I never shared more than a joint with him and always let him smoke most. He would sit with me and talk about his life, his family, his sorrow at leaving Portugal and his friends. We used to sit behind the velodrome in a clump of trees in front of a warehouse where no-one could see us. He always used to put his arm around my shoulder and it became clear that he was keen to be more than just friends. He was young, hormonal and possibly in need of a father figure who wasn't the absent, strict, catholic person his own father was.
Again it was something I let slip. In a suburb where sex and drugs were only a few minutes walk away I figured he would be able to work it out himself. Instead I became his friend, his listener, his advisor and eventually his helper....
The day after Matty hit me (this would be the last time) I was sitting in the dining room with my new class program spread out in front of me on the dining table trying to get myself organized for the rest of the term. I had to work that evening and the following day so I only had a few hours in which to get my lessons prepared. I hadn't seen Matty since he had hit me, having returned from my walk and going straight to my room to get stoned and try and think about my choices - should I stay or should I go?
Matty answered that for me. As usual, after one of his beatings, he was full of remorse, but still adamant that I had deserved it. If I had been there when he needed me he wouldn't have gotten 'so frightened and angry'! He made all the usual promises of 'I won't do it again', but then shocked me by asking me to give up my teaching job so I could be there to look after him. He said he knew he didn't have long to live and that he would possibly be in hospital within weeks. He needed me to be there for him.
With his beautiful, still scarred face, his sorrowful puppy dog eyes and pathetic announcement he almost had me convinced. I still desperately loved him, despite what he had put me through, despite the old and new scars (some of which I still bear today), despite the knowledge that he could never reciprocate my feelings. Almost, until he played his 'trump card' or so he thought. He said without blinking, if you don't then I will have to get Christine to move back in!
I think he expected me to fall for this immediately and was surprised when I didn't answer straight away. I remember packing a cone and smoking it slowly and deliberately before saying to him that I needed some time to think and would let him know before I left for work. I then began sorting through my program until he realised that I was serious and left me alone with the words, 'but you have to tell me before you go'.
F*ck!!!!! It took nearly 10 years for me to wake up to the reality of him. He was and always had been a blatant user. He had taken everything from me over the years. My money, my sense of self worth, my happiness and still wanted to take more. 'you are a good man' Nuno had told me the day before, 'where did you go' the children had all asked me before falling at my feet like lambs. I had overcome so many obstacles (mainly Matty) and finally had not only a professional career, but also obvious respect from the community and he was asking me to throw it all away just so I could be there to hold his hand while he died. I wanted to yell at him, I wanted to hit him, I wanted to to tell him to f*ck off......
I didn't. In the end I simply said 'Matty, I can't give up everything for you, but I will always be here for you till the end'. I left for work and by the time I returned home at midnight Christine was already there with an overnight bag. She moved in the following day.....
