Gangy's Gap Ch. 05

As the next couple of years wore on our relationship seemed to re-cement. We started working on that baby. Claudia began liaising with Miriam about the possibility of doing her doctorate through Otago. Miriam felt she should do it through the anthropology department.

They were developing a research programme that her interests would neatly dovetail into. But it depended on funding which would be confirmed toward the end of the year. It would be linked to a much larger longitudinal study, gathering a mass of evidential data from a section of population.

Claudia visited Otago to discuss the programme then settled on examining current cultural myths about family and sexual violence and to see whether the evidential data supported any of the myths. Claudia had a long game in this. She contended that group bias was tending to be divisive and would not help resolve the issues of the high level of such violence. She wanted to use evidence to forge a new common approach through greater understanding of the two dominant genders. In the meantime Claudia undertook a literature search in preparation.

At the same time we were both working on her play. We decided that she should set out the story and using that work with the members of my drama club to write the dialogue as part of their script writing studies. It would be a pilot for Claudia. Being for a school audience we decided not to be too contentious but the basic premise was in place, based on Romeo and Juliet. We would put them in a fantasy world. They would be based on tribal gangs, one dominated and lead by girls who dominated the boys and the other conversely lead by boys.

The high school students had a ball and the dialogue, although really funny, had very serious undertones which they were very earnest about. The play went down well but our efforts to avoid contention were not wholly successful as some in the audience detected a moral agenda which they had strong ideas about. We actually had a couple of opposing protest groups on the last night almost replicating the premise of the play.

Buoyed by its success Claudia embarked on her main play and became quite obsessed. She joined a writers group to enhance her skills. At home we tried out various scenes using the family as cast members. Once or twice I had the drama club trying a scene and critiquing it. Claudia regularly attended and assisted with my drama club.

During this time Claudia and I were enjoying each other's company and our intimate moments were special. The girls loved having their mother back and Claudia filled her life with her family as well as her projects.

The reconciliation of Claudia and Georgia was a milestone. They had never been close since Georgia had been an annoying little sister. It seemed that Georgia had come to terms with Claudia and my reuniting and was genuinely excited about the possibility of a family.

Sue and the party animals downstairs settled back into their own worlds. I was a little bit wary of Sue and the influence she had on Claudia when she returned. Sue did however continue to spoil our girls and was always eager to babysit, help out at parties or sew costumes.

It was a happy, happy, time. There was music and dance back in our family. It was the 80's and I remembered we liked Talking heads and Kate Bush. One memorable day, the girls decided to give little Emma a birthday party. Emma wanted a hippy dance party and all the girls dressed up to look like mum in THAT picture. Although Claudia still had the Kaftan, she did not now fit it so she made a new one to match. Complete with their kaftans and floral hair wreaths they danced at the party frenetically to B52s or whatever. With Rachael being Rachael we had to have a performance. She organized the girls to give a dance performance to the Bangles Tune 'Walk like an Egyptian' The sight of these little girls all dancing expertly in automated unison was astounding. Then Rachael did her own interpretive dance to Laurie Anderson's "Hey superman." I realized then how talented this girl was. We had it videotaped. It's now digitized waiting for the doco on her life.

This was the last really carefree event for the family. I noticed things beginning to cool between Claudia and I. At the time she had finished the play and we were touting it to drama companies and repertory theatres for a first performance. It impressed one major drama company who were keen to use it but there was yet a final decision and time was dragging on.

Claudia was also still waiting for research funding. Coupled with this there had been no success in the baby department. Claudia was starting to seriously fuss about it. She was worried about her biological clock. Finally she had tests and announced that she could not have one. It was an emotional time. Georgia surprised everyone by offering to be a surrogate mother. Initially Claudia did not take this too well. The house was a disruptive mess as well. I had builders in building another bedroom for the non-existent baby

Claudia began focusing on her career moves and in a pique once yelled that she didn't want one anyway as it would interfere with her research. It just seemed the wheels were falling off everything. There was a lot of niggling between us to the point that it was affecting our relationship with the girls and they were finding excuses to play elsewhere.

It culminated in a crisis. I was rung at school by our counsellor asking if I could come in straight away. It seems that Claudia had urgently booked a session for that afternoon and that I should join her.

I managed to find someone to take over my class and headed out to the suburban office of our counsellor. I arrived to find Claudia crying in an armchair. It seems she had spontaneously seduced the carpenter working on our extension for quickie sex that morning. In a fit of remorse she called the counsellor and had decided to come clean about a lot of detail she had not told me to date and she had avoided in our previous counselling sessions.

I sat own in an armchair opposite her with a heavy, heavy feeling of foreboding.

She could not explain the morning's compulsive sex but she felt that there was stuff she was going to have to explain and that I would probably have to learn to live with if we were to stay married.

She began with Arcadia. Yes she did have more sex than she admitted; multiple sex and her first taste of lesbian sex. And it was entirely consensual. It was frightening but it thrilled her.

I remembered the photographs. I did not mention that I had seen the photos. She did not mention ever being photographed. The thing that tore me to the core was that I had assumed she had been raped. From what she was saying it was the opposite and she had freely set out to cheat on me all in the name of free love.

I brought up the issue of her and her brother and how she had branded me a rapist because had not met her expectation for resistance. She said what her brother had done was incestuous and utterly repugnant to her and the worst thing about that time there. She had never forgiven her brother even though he died. She did apologize again for calling me a rapist over it. Although at the time she had been resentful of my action in seemingly joining forces with her brother, she had willfully used the incident to curry favour with the radical feminists she was influenced by at Albion.

She did say that after Arcadia she had never cheated on me until Julia. She had tried hard in our married life even though at times she had craved compulsive sex. She thought that she had become overwhelmed and impatient with having to cope with the three very young children in quick succession at a very young age. All her old friends seem to be out there having fun and she did not relate well to other mothers.

As far as Iona she had said all she was going say about that, however once at Albion she became very promiscuous. As opposed to the one affair she had admitted to she had a succession of partners culminating in Sharon. She said most of the women were promiscuous and there was a lot of tension there because of it. She admitted that she was probably way more that way than the others, but swapping or moving on from lovers was not rare.

Knowing that she had left with Sharon and had once mentioned her name when making love with me I was fascinated and quizzed her about Sharon.

"She said she knew Sharon had been in prison, She knew she was a bad girl and dangerous. Sharon was big and strong, but not unattractive apart from some ugly tattoos. Claudia explained that right from that night at Gangy's gap she had a secret fantasy about being raped that she used to masturbate to it."

I was floored.

"Are you telling me you wanted to be raped?"

"Hell no, it was really being fucked forcefully by someone tough and dangerous like Robbie at gangy's gap. Sharon reminded me of Robbie. I fell in love with her."

"You fuckin' what?"

What is it about romantic love and lust that undermines a perfectly sensible person's ability for rational thought? Some body falls in love. That's all, it explains everything. It was something that Claudia herself would struggle with; the undefinable nature of the attraction. She tried to explain.

"She was very kind and personable at Albion. She was visiting and not with the other two. She actually courted me. We went out on dates and she paid for stuff. We slept together and fucked. She was strong with me but gentle. I became totally tied up in her world. I guess that's why I bought that satanic shit."

"I can't imagine it being romantic like our year of Love."

"Well it was in a funny sort of away."

"That all changed when we came down south."

"I discovered very quickly that it was not love with her it was just sex and Mary and Cherylene were jealous of me. Being in the country we were quite isolated in that house. Mary and Cherylene had jobs and Sharon went back to one at an old people's home in town."

"I had nothing to do but write and nothing to write about. All the stuff about a preschool was bullshit. They kept leading me on and making excuses about visiting school or interviewing anyone."

"They started being cruel and vindictive. They would dream up shitty little tasks for me to do while they were at work and punish me if I did not meet some imaginary expectation."

"Then began the sex games; they would do all sorts of things. Mary and Cherylene used to put on big strap-ons and double team me. That was their punishment for some stupid slight or other. They used to push a huge dildo up my vag and arse. That's why I am so stretched now. They would stick things up my vag and fist me. I got a bad infection at one stage and that's probably why I can't have any more kids.

Then came the real violence; there was a lot of drink and meth. Sharon used to get in a rage and strike out over petty things. She did it to everyone but she zeroed in on me. I think she now wanted me to go because there was always shit happening between the other two and me.

I still loved her. I thought only if I could help her. So I hung on blindly not realizing I was making her worse. I wound up in the local hospital twice. I began to understand what a bad marriage must be really like. It got to a head when all of them violently gang raped me. I was feeling sick to start with. I was bawling so much afterward the three of them got stuck into to me. I honestly thought they were going to kill me and I ran outside and hid in the bush until next morning. That's when I started walking back to Wellington and finding you. "

"Well I guess it goes to show," I surmised, "Evil does not have a gender after all. How did you know I'd still be teaching at the same school?"

"I didn't" I just guessed. "You're a rock and I think I could reliably expect you to be in the same place after six years."

I was not sure whether that was and insult or not.

Then there was the final piece of the puzzle.

"What was all that about Sue. You arrive back to your family and virtually ignore us for about three weeks, what was with that?"

"Oh I don't know. After 6 years I was really afraid of you guys. I did not expect to come across you altogether happily waiting for me to return. I had spent a good part of my time away demonizing you until it was belted out of me. Suddenly I discovered genuine people and nice people. I did not know how to handle it. The other thing is that after six years I had an over-riding sense of freedom. I really took to Sue. She is a real party girl. Did you know she is bi-sexual?"

"No. Did you have sex with her?"

"Of course not but we were having a really wild time."

And then came the bombshell

"I think you saved me in time," said Claudia not comprehending that what she would say next would utterly destroy our marriage.

"You remember that Saturday before that play opening, the one we never finally got to go to, well, we both got really pissed and I chatted up these really young guys. Three of them drove me home with Sue and one of them fucked me in the car right in front of the flat before I came in. We were going to..."

I cut in

Who were these three guys?

"Oh you would probably know them, one was I think Jordan West..."

I exploded

"I fucking know these guys. I taught them of couple of years earlier. They would also know exactly who you were."

"You fucking, fucking slut, you have got to be in a parallel universe. You set out that night to utterly humiliate me. You cuckolded me with some of my own pupils in front of my house and you are showing no remorse. How could you bubble along so enthusiastically describe yourself as having a raging good time and unthinkingly not understand what I would make of it? Was I supposed to take so much pity on you being a victim of domestic violence that I would excuse any fucking excess you felt entitled to?"

"I was humiliated by you once before at Arcadia but that was all in the name of free love. This seems like it is just habitual with you, fucking who you like; mindless of wreckage in your wake."

It was a cruel last take but it was true.

Claudia was stunned absolutely opened mouth. I was in a crimson fury and posturing with clenched fists. The counsellor moved between us thinking that I might get violent.

Claudia began stuttering…" I... I am so sorry. I don't know why I thought you would think that OK after everything else I did."

"Everything else you did, you did it to yourself. Despite the collateral damage you ultimately suffered more from your own actions. This thing, you aimed directly to me. You were probably embarrassed but ho-ho-ho, we were so pissed, but it was fun and so sorry I won't do it again."

I raged on

"I 'm sorry, it will happen again and again. This is out and out compulsive sex. I don't think you will ever change. Today I am drawing a line under it. I am sorry I don't think we have a choice. You have to realize who you are. You are a true alternative. You don't think like us conventional people. You are self-obsessed with a mindset stuck in the alternative world of the hippie."

Oddly Claudia wasn't crying. I suspect it was a kind of relief.

Well it was a kind of relief for me, too. There had been a tension from the time she got back from her time away. On calming down we were quite rational about the situation. There was a strange calmness when we got home. We retired to the bedroom and made plans. There was still the spare bedroom down stairs and Sue would love to have her back. Claudia was thinking that she might have to move to Otago and didn't like the idea of commuting. She could now just move. There was no longer the stress of trying for the baby. She could concentrate on her career. That would be her baby.

We resolved that we would divorce but remain close and work together. The divorce would take two years anyway under the new law. Claudia asked if she could keep her wedding rings. She thought a divorce was just a legal thing and she wanted to keep the connection. She never reverted to her maiden name either.

On that first night she even suggested that I should court her sister Georgia. Knowing their history I was surprised but she said that the two of you are utterly conventional and probably far more compatible than she could be. I suspected the possibility that Georgia and Claudia may have discussed this possibility earlier.

Funnily in that instant, hatred and shame from my humiliation dissipated. We were in a small loving and supportive pond. Everyone knew that after our six year separation nothing was going to be easy. The blame card was never rolled out. Once knowing Claudia's story it was easy to understand that she was the victim of herself and she suffered from it.

Like the way I felt about my students I genuinely wanted her to succeed and I knew my sister Miriam would as well. Once funding for the research was confirmed she would guide Claudia into her career.

There came a time when Claudia's play finally opened. The final product was called "Agnetha and Draxas" it was set in the mythical dystopian world of two warring tribes." The Misandri" and "The Mysogen."

Well you probably know Romeo and Juliet, however this one does end differently. It ends with a path out of the dystopian world with the path of hope. I will leave it to you to find out the fate of Agnetha and Draxas.

The interesting thing about the play was that embedded in it were the seeds of Claudia's doctorate. It really spelt her manifesto. It was built on all that Claudia experienced since that fateful night at Gangy's gap.

Claudia was trying to break the bias that exists on both sides that is fueled by power agendas. Her premise was to expose it by exhibiting cause and effect at every level from the intimate to the public including the very private detail of those who exhibit power in a way that never can happen in our contemporary society.

It may, perhaps be alluded to in public scandal but never in a way that can be understood, What detail happens that effects their decisions and their position in public life. To do this Claudia invokes an imaginary society that largely behaves in the manner of ancient European society but with a difference. It is set in the clash of the two most dominant genders, a war of the sexes. It exposes why that develops and asks the question, could it develop in our contemporary world.

In saying this and being her first and ultimately only work of its type Claudia was understandably sensitive. If the pilot play had invoked a small protest, this play was controversial to a degree that there was a group camped outside for the final week of the run. It was considered by most critics, whether they agreed with it or not, as a brave and thought provoking mature work by a true natural.

There was one critic that was absolutely scathing. He pronounced it as an attempt at a post-modern work which had missed the boat entirely. At the time Claudia was visiting with Miriam from Otago and we were sitting with young Rachael. We were seated around at the kitchen table over wine when Claudia read the review. She was incandescent. The critic was none other than Joseph Franklyn.

"The fact he is the proponent of post-modernism says it all," exclaimed Claudia. "Post modernism is the repudiation of science. It gives license to the ignorant. You can see it in today's media. It's become a pastiche of random fact and it exhibits only bias; evidence is ignored. You see it in our politics, in feminism, in economics; even our music has become debased by the derivative. That fucker is looking at the next phase and he just does not know it."

"The idiot thinks that perception is reality," Claudia was stabbing an imaginary Franklyn with two fingers as she blasted spittle at us all with her passion, "It's the arts that should be showing the division of reality and perception," She concluded with, "I bet he thinks a flat earth is a valid proposition. And his wife probably has not vaccinated her kid!"