Payback Ch. 02

1996-1998

Angus hadn't wanted to accept Peter's loan and for a while I'd thought I had no chance of convincing him, but his parents had stepped in and encouraged their son to take advantage of it.

'If you have a house, you have security,' Auntie Rose told him. 'Nobody is the boss but you.'

We bought a small house in Loganholme; three bedrooms, one bathroom, one garage. I'd wanted to buy a four bedroom place so we could have three children, but Angus was very firm that there would only ever be two kids. Money had been tight when he was growing up and he didn't want the same for his children.

It took us a year to repay Peter's loan. There were times when Angus and I were caught out by the reality of council rates or unexpected repair bills and lived off noodles, and we couldn't afford new furniture, so our house was furnished with a motley assortment of hand me downs and thrift store buys, but we were happy. We were also forced to quit smoking if we wanted to pay down the debt quickly, so quit smoking we did.

Thirteen months after the loan was extended, we made the final payment.

'You paid the last of the loan off last night,' Peter said the following morning.

'Yep.'

'Here,' he said. He handed me an envelope. 'Have it back as a bonus. You did good, Helen. Angus, too. You're good kids. The only thing I don't like about you two is that sooner or later you're going to want to start a family and I don't know what I'm going to do without you.'

I would have happily started trying for a baby that night, but Angus put the brakes on my enthusiasm. He matter-of-factly told me he wanted to get married first. I asked him if he was proposing.

'I suppose I am,' Angus agreed.

We married two months' later. No sooner than our wedding night, I started pestering for a baby.

'I want to ride around Australia with you,' Angus said. 'We can have a baby anytime.'

'We can't take that much time off work,' I argued. 'Riding around Australia would take months, and we can't afford that. Please. I want a baby. You said we could have one after we got married.'

Angus sighed. We'd had a simple wedding; we'd got married in a local park, but it had still been a long day and he wasn't in any rush to do anything other than get me naked and go to sleep. I knew children were the last thing on his mind, but I was incredibly clucky.

'Please?' I begged.

He shook his head slightly at me but the smile he gave me showed me he'd conceded. 'You're like my bloody mother, you know that? She's crazy about kids. But we're only having two. After the second one comes, that's it. We're not having more than we can afford.'

I squealed with excitement and dragged him off to the bedroom.

I'd assumed I'd fall pregnant quickly, but life is never perfect and dreams are rarely realised. After our second failed month of trying I burst into tears at the sight of blood in my knickers and took the day off work to cry.

In hindsight, my reaction that day seems out and out hilarious, because the third month passed, and the four, and the fifth and still I wasn't pregnant. I went to see our doctor who told me to go back and keep trying, that these things can take time. Angus and I were young, and he was confident we'd conceive within the next six months.

Every month I'd buy handfuls of pregnancy tests and start testing a week before my period was due. I kept the tests hidden in the back of the vanity cabinet, because I knew Angus would tell me to stop being silly and let nature take it's course. He, like the doctor, was completely and utterly confident I'd fall pregnant. Worse, he didn't seem at all bothered it wasn't happening as quickly as I wanted to.

'Look at all the money we're saving,' he pointed out. 'I don't even know why we're trying. We should enjoy life for a while, just the two of us.'

I burst into tears for what must have been the millionth time since we started trying to make a baby. It seemed that all around me women were having babies. I had a girlfriend get pregnant from a one night stand, for fuck's sake. So why could Angus and I, who were both light drinkers, non smokers, relatively healthy eaters, employed, home owners and married to boot, not get pregnant?

The months rolled by. There still wasn't a whiff of a pregnancy. I went back to the doctor, with Angus there to hold my hand as support, but my regular GP was away and I was referred to a locum who instead of showing any sort of concern, laughed at us and asked why two people in their early twenties were so desperate to have a kid.

Angus and I exchanged troubled glances. This wasn't going so well and we'd only been here two minutes. I was about to suggest we wait until my regular doctor returned when the locum said he'd organise a semen analysis for Angus. That would be the first step to establishing what was going wrong.

Angus and I left the surgery.

'He didn't seem very keen to help,' Angus remarked, folding the referral slip and putting it in his back pocket.

'No,' I agreed. 'Maybe we should wait until Dr Stewart is back.'

'How about I get the test done to rule out sperm stuff being a problem, and when see your regular GP when he's back?'

'Okay,' I agreed.

Angus went to do the semen analysis on Monday. By the end of the week, the locum called us in for a chat to discuss the results. He seemed almost delighted to tell us there were significant issues with Angus's sample.

'Do you want some advice?' the doctor asked.

We nodded timidly. Doctors are incredibly intimidating people to young, working class folk. They seem to have all the power, money and knowledge in the world. They can't be argued with, questioned or criticised. Their word is final.

'Go and enjoy your youth.' He stood up and walked to the door, holding it open as a hint to us it was time to leave. 'If you're still together in five or ten years' time, get a sperm donor.'

2017

Two weeks after Ciaran, I went out to pick up.

It wasn't good. I think I'd been lucky until then. I hadn't really listened to the men or what they were saying. They could have admitted to being axe murderers and I just would have nodded my head and smiled. But that night was different. I don't really know why, perhaps Ciaran had changed something for me, but when the man started telling me about all the things his ex-wife had done, include having him jailed for domestic violence which 'the bitch had provoked' I realised I needed to get away.

I thought I could just pretend I was going to the toilet and sneak away.

I thought wrong.

He caught me in the carpark. It was dark and quiet and nobody was around.

I'd never been hit by a man before.

2003

'Three months leave without pay?' Peter peered up at me.

I squirmed guiltily. 'Angus has always wanted to tour Australia on his bike. The last time he went he got pneumonia a few weeks in and came back to Brisbane on medical advice.'

Peter sighed with relief. 'You scared me. I thought it was a maternity leave application.'

I shook my head. 'No.'

Peter gave me a bemused smile. He, like most people, had a soft spot for my husband. 'One last tour before you two try and make a family?' he asked.

I was so sick of being asked about children. As the years passed, more and more people had made indiscreet inquiries about our plans for reproducing. Angus and I always said 'maybe' or 'one day' or gave some other non committal answer.

What else could we say? When we'd discovered Angus had issues with his sperm, we'd tried searching sperm banks, only to find that there were no Aboriginal donors. Angus confided in a cousin of his, who agreed to provide the goods for us, and for a year the three of us tried. Wade would wank in our bathroom and Angus would help insert his semen into my vagina using a syringe.

Only, that didn't work, either, and Wade was a father so his fertility was proven, so we knew there had to be more going on. I went to my doctor, my normal GP, and told him everything we'd tried to date. He sent me for a barrage of tests, and when the results came back we received the devastating news that I, too, had extremely sub-standard fertility. IVF was recommended.

IVF was a failure. After four failed transfers, the specialist sat us down for a frank discussion. She recommended we look into adoption.

Adoption in Australia? Who was she kidding? Only a handful of babies are adopted out each year. The chances of us being given a baby were infinitesimally small, but nonetheless, Angus and I went through the processes to be considered as potential adoptive parents.

We knew nobody would ever choose us to be the parents of their child. Babies are precious gifts, and who would give one to a young, working class couple, one half of which was Indigenous? Who in their right mind would choose that for their child when they could choose a white, professional, middle or upper class couple with a home in a prestigious suburb and all the money in the world? We stayed on the register, seeking to adopt, but we both knew we'd never be contemplated.

International adoption remained a faint possibility, but the costs would near ruin us and Angus had huge misgivings about taking a child from it's culture. My husband had never been hugely interested in Indigenous culture, motorcycles were where his passion lay, but it had always been there, available, should he choose to learn more, and he had a close-knit extended family filled with people who looked like him, and knew what it meant to be Aboriginal. He also felt there was something terrible about taking a child because it's parents couldn't afford to look after it, and he wanted no part in such affairs.

I understood my husband's misgivings, not because I understood Aboriginal culture, but because I didn't, and because I often failed to notice the discrimination he and his family suffered. Who was I to inflict that on a child? And who was I to take advantage of another person's poverty?

I was mulling over all of this while Peter continued to stare expectantly at me.

'No,' I blurted out, sick of being asked, and sick of lying. 'We can't have kids. We've been trying for years. There are too many problems. We're just going on holidays to get away.'

'Oh Helen, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to pry. Your leave is approved. I'll find a casual to fill in for you.' He seemed awfully guilty and awkward.

I felt guilty for over-sharing and made a joke to hide my discomfort.

'You might want to make sure the casual can stay here long term if Angus kills me,' I joked. 'We agreed that if both of us get our leave approved he can get a Hayabusa.'

Peter seemed relieved at my joke. Better to talk about my husband's stupid choice of motorcycle than our infertility.

'He's not taking you around Australia on that, is he?' he asked incredulously. 'Tell him to go to Honda and buy a proper tourer.'

'He won't.'

'So I take it he's not still trying to get you to learn to ride?'

'No, I've told him in no uncertain terms that if he suggests it one more time I'll suffocate him in his sleep. I hate it, I just know I'm going to die if I keep trying to learn, and I'm sick of his friends laughing at me.'

For years Angus had been trying to teach me to ride. He'd even bought me riding lessons as a Valentine's Day gift, which he still hadn't lived down, and this despite me repeatedly telling him that I had no interest in learning and was, in fact, terrified of riding.

Who on earth puts neutral in between first and second gears? My instructor had repeatedly told the class how hard it was to 'accidentally' find neutral when switching gears. Well, I'd proven him wrong on that, hadn't I? And when I'd dropped my bike at a set of traffic lights, I'd walked over to the side of the road, sat down and cried. If you'd like to know how to piss of a riding instructor, I assure you that abandoning your ride in the middle of Chermside is a good way to do it. Angus had been equally mad, and when he'd realised anger wouldn't get him anywhere, he'd tried a different tactic.

'But girls look so sexy on a bike,' he'd argued.

'Girls?' I'd repeated. 'What girls are you looking at?'

Angus was smart enough to know when it was time to call it quits on an argument, and he muttered some excuse about needing to call his mother and headed outside. No further comments were made about me getting my motorcycle license. I'd learned to ride a bicycle, and I thought that was more than enough.

Two months after I had my leave approved, Angus and I headed off on his shiny new 'Busa. Despite the fast bike, it was a slow journey. We were both emotionally exhausted and we needed this time together.

We were only a day or two from home when we went out for dinner at a local restaurant and Angus had too much to drink. We'd left the bike at the motel and walked to dinner, so it wasn't much of an issue to walk back. Angus was always a cheerful, happy drunk, so when he did overdo it, I never really minded.

But that night something happened. After we'd got back to our motel I mentioned that I wanted to have a shower and lie down.

'Are you tired?' he asked.

It was his way of telling me he wanted sex. He never really came out and asked, he just gave hints and whatnot, which I'd pick up on, and I'd mostly respond to favourably. He didn't have a stupidly high sex drive, three or four times a week was enough to keep him happy, so I liked to oblige him whenever he asked.

That night, though, I was tired and sore. We had an odd sort of room for a motel; the bed was half-hidden behind a three quarter wall, and the remainder of the space housed a couch, small table, television and bar fridge and I figured I could nap in privacy while he watched tellie.

'Yeah,' I replied. 'I might go to sleep.'

He grabbed me and pulled me into a hug. Before I could protest he was giving me a big, alcohol sodden kiss. As the kiss deepened, his hands began to roam over my body in a way that suggested he wanted me to reconsider my refusal.

On ninety-eight percent of occasions I would have straight up agreed to sex, and even if I'd initially declined him, if he'd pressed forward and asked me to reconsider, I'd normally change my mind. That night, though, I wasn't in the mood. I just wanted to have a shower and sleep.

'Get off me, you,' I replied in a light tone. 'I'll sort you out tomorrow.'

'Please?'

'Angus, I'm tired,' I said. 'I'm sorry. Just let me go to sleep.'

'Really? I've got no chance?' He squeezed me tight and ground himself against me. 'Helen...'

I wriggled out of his grip.

'No.'

He stared at me resentfully. 'You know, I never really press you if you say 'no', but tonight, it would be good if you could just... say yes. Please.'

'No,' I said, starting to lose my temper. How many times did I have to repeat the word myself? 'I'm going to bed.'

I went to the bathroom, removed my make-up, had a shower and brushed my teeth. At first I was quite angry, but as the minutes ticked by, I began to re-appraise the way I'd reacted to Angus. He was right; he did barely push it. If I said 'no', he accepted it, and to be fair, he'd done plenty of things he hadn't wanted for me. Would it really kill me to put a smile on my face and go out and seduce him? No. No, it wouldn't, I decided.

With my mind now made up, I dropped the towel, opened the bathroom door and walked through the bedroom and towards the living area.

I figured a naked woman striding towards him would bring about a favourable reaction, but instead Angus panicked when he saw I wasn't stopping at the bed and reached for the remote.

He wasn't quick enough.

My mouth formed into a small, tight line when I saw he'd been checking through the pay-per-movie adult entertainment section. I didn't like porn, hated it in fact. I couldn't help but compare myself to the female stars and always found I was sadly lacking. Who in their right mind would want to have sex with me after seeing some gorgeous babe on TV?

I covered my chest with my hands and scurried back to the bathroom. Angus was right behind me, and I told him to go away as I pulled on my knickers and sleep shirt.

'Helen, I wasn't looking for porn,' he lied.

'You were!' I yanked my shirt down to my thighs. 'Go back to it. Don't let me get in the way of you perving on other women.'

'It's not like that,' he pleaded.

'Well I'm glad we can now both agree you were looking at it on purpose,' I snapped.

My reaction might sound over the top, but keep in mind this was an era where it was entirely possible for women to ignore porn. Sure, we knew some men looked at it, but it was easy to imagine they were 'other' men, dirty minded men, single men. Not our husbands. Not good, normal, men.

I saw it as a threat, and the performers as a direct challenge to me. Why on earth would Angus want to have sex with me after seeing beautiful, naked girls, girls who elicited all sorts of favourable reactions from men, and who never refused to do reverse cowgirl because they were worried they had a fat bum. Pornstars never had to suck in their stomachs because IVF drugs had made them gain weight. They were mythical beings, always sexually available and willing, always beautiful, and utterly impossible for the average woman to 'compete' with.

And until that night I had ignored any whiff of a hint that Angus might have enjoyed it. God knows what I thought he'd done when producing the countless semen samples he'd had to provide, but I must've figured he ignored the magazines men were kindly provided. It's embarrassing but sexually speaking, I was very conservative, largely due to my own insecurities.

'Helen...'

'Go!' I said, trying to push him into the lounge. 'Go! Go and watch the damn sluts. That's what you want to do!'

'No, it's not,' he replied. He threw his hands up in frustration. 'I'm on holidays. I want to have a good time.'

I barged past him and into the bedroom area. I climbed into bed and tried to yank the sheets over me, but some fuckwit had tucked them too tightly at the bottom and I pulled and tugged at them to no avail. Angus noticed my plight and loosened the sheets for me, which only drove me deeper into rage.

'You can go now,' I told him.

He sighed heavily and reached down to take off his shoes. He undressed, climbed into bed with me, and tried to give me a cuddle.

'Go and watch your bloody porn,' I whispered, but the fight was going, replaced by something more raw and real; fear.

'Hez,' he mumbled, kissing my head. 'Why do you get so upset about it?'

'Because the girls look better than me,' I admitted.

'Nah, they just have a lot of make-up on. You're heaps prettier.'

I pulled the blankets up over my face. 'I'm horrible.'

'No, see Hez, you're beautiful to me. But, you know, this conversation is difficult to have, but I think we need to talk about us, and about sex. For almost all of our time together we've been paying back money, or trying to have a baby, or saving money to try and have or adopt a baby. It's not going to happen.'

'I know that,' I muttered.

'Yeah, but now it's just us. You and me. I want to know - honestly - if there's no baby, do you still want me?'

I turned around and stared at him incredulously.

'Are you asking if I still love you?' I asked.

He nodded. 'Yeah.'

'Of course,' I exclaimed. 'Do you love me?'

'Yeah, I do,' he said. He hugged me tightly and muttered something.

'What's that?' I asked.

'I said, 'we're not very good at sex',' he repeated.

'We're... fine,' I argued.

'No, we're not. You barely ever orgasm. And, sometimes you tell me you don't want to do something because you think I'll think you have a fat bum or something, and really, that's the last thing I'm thinking.' He held my hand on his heart and stared at me with the wide, honest eyes of a man who'd had a few too many drinks. 'Hand on my heart, honest to God. And sometimes I'd like you to initiate it. I feel like I'm always chasing after you, wanting sex.