Melanie's Story Pt. 02

Tina is three years younger than me, back then she was a store manager for Just Jeans in Eastland shopping centre. When Agnetha brought up the subject of Tina's husband she grinned.

"He's just passed his twelve month anniversary, I wanted to celebrate with a cake but he told me it wasn't that special."

"Twelve month anniversary of what?" I asked.

"My husband goes to Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm in Alanon."

I swallowed as I asked the next question.

"Alanon is for families and friends of alcoholics."

"It's a great organisation," Agnetha looked over her shoulder as she washed the dishes.

"You should have seen this woman when she came into my surgery. I very nearly upped her medication she was that depressed but don't take it from me, she'll tell you more."

It was one hell of a story but at first I thought she must have been clued up about me because it was as if she was telling my story for me. Tina had been through a six year marriage to a verbally abusive alcoholic and like me she'd been on antidepressants. In fact she'd been on several different ones and it was while she was out doctor shopping for more that she stumbled into Agnetha's surgery and ran into a brick wall.

"She saw right through me, it was like someone had warned her because she sat me on my arse and told me I wasn't the sick one. My husband was the sick one and he was making me sicker with his sickness. Agnetha took me to my first meeting of Alanon and I learned that I'm powerless over alcohol and I'm powerless over people. I couldn't change David because that was something only he could do but I could change the way I let him affect me."

That conversation turned my life around completely. I went to my first meeting of Alanon the next day out at the old Croydon monastery and met others who were just like me. Some were married to alcoholic partners, others just had family members suffering with the illness but I learned about the disease concept. It's a family illness and it's also an equal opportunity disease, it affects men and women and exists in all levels of society.

I realised that I too was sick and needed to change, let it begin with me I was told at meetings over and over again. I started exercising again to shift some of the weight, stopped comfort eating and began to look outwards. Jeff at first thought I was having an affair but a month after my first meeting I admitted that I was going to Alanon. His response was so typically laughable.

"So you think I'm an alkie?"

"No, I'm not the one who has to come to that conclusion, it's up to you to admit that but I'm not going to be your prop."

That went down like a lead balloon!

A few days after that conversation, Elke turned up in her car. At least that's what she called it, little James was goggle-eyed at this second hand four wheel drive Suzuki, complete with soft top and roll bars, the car was cherry red and she tooted the horn as she swung out of the car.

"What do you think of my new wheels?"

"You traded in the Kingswood for that? It looks like a matchbox car."

"But it has four wheel drive, perfect for mountain roads," her eyes twinkled, "wanna come for a ride?"

"I'd love to but now's not a good time," I turned as Jeff came outside, he had his car keys in his hand and came to a dead stop when he saw the car.

"You shrunk the Kingswood."

"Yeah I washed it," she grinned and fluffed at her hair.

"Um, I gotta duck down the pub for some supplies."

"I'll get them, if you give me the money," she put her arm around my shoulders, "I'm trying to talk me mate Mel into going for a ride."

"Okay," he reached for his wallet, "and you'll be back before sunset?"

"Course," she pushed me towards the car, "as the song says, jump in my car, babe."

"Get me a slab of heavies and a bottle of Southern," he handed me the money, "and um, get something for yourself too if you want."

A minute or two later we were heading down the driveway and onto the dirt road. Elke had a cheeky grin on her face as she dumped the clutch and jammed the accelerator down.

"Light the fires, babe," she chuckled.

We took off in a shower of dust and I felt a rush I hadn't felt in years, not since the time I'd been going out with Mandy. Like my ex, Elke could talk for Melbourne, she chattered about work, the cases she'd been working on the last week or two and by the time we pulled into the carpark at the Mount Dandy hotel I was laughing as well.

"So, how's life with the bastard?"

"He's still a bastard but at least he knows I'm going to Alanon now."

"How did that go down?"

"Not good," I admitted, "he thinks I think he's an alkie and he is but I can't tell him."

"Want me to tell him? I'll even put on my uniform and puff out my chest."

"Oh don't do that, he might shoot his bolt."

"Messy," she giggled, "so, this weekend is Moomba and I've managed to swing a long weekend, so how about we grab the kids and piss off into the city?"

"You mean just leave Jeff?"

"I'm sure he'll cope."

She had him worked out all right. Jeff could certainly cope and almost seemed keen to push me out the door for the weekend. I'd have to get changed at work though but then I could follow Elke into the city. It's gone down in my memory as my first date with Elke, although I never thought of it in those terms. It was just good to get away from Jeff and just spend time with the kids and another adult who'd actually grown up. We wandered back and forth along the Yarra, trying out different rides and when she met up with two of her friends in the force, the kids got a quick ride in a police car. The twins were jumping up and down with excitement with their glow in the dark headbands and fairy necklaces.

Afterwards we went back to Elke's house and the kids were allowed to pitch a 'tent' in the living room and sleep on mattresses on the floor. It was the first time I could remember having a normal day out with the kids without having to put up with Jeff's tantrums or one of his dramas. When I fell into bed with Elke I just lay there and stared at the ceiling, contemplating this new thing called normality. I wanted more of this and Elke was certainly up for it. She became closer in some ways than Sigrid. Because I worked with Sigrid, there were some boundaries but with Elke there were no boundaries, just those we set for ourselves.

To say that we were together then is wrong though. I was married and despite Jeff's childish behaviour I wasn't the cheating kind. I knew Elke swung both ways, she was certainly up front about her sexuality but it wasn't a road I was going to go down a second time, yet.

Ultimately though it was the combination of a number of things towards the end of the year that drove Jeff to a new rock bottom. The first was my friendship with Elke, Sigrid, Agnetha and to a lesser extent, Caroline although she would factor in my life in a big way soon enough. I now had a broader social circle, although to be honest my social calendar had been pretty grim for years, so maybe it was just a brand new social circle. Being around normal women with healthy self esteem and a positive outlook on life soon rubbed off on me, I found myself shaking off old behaviour patterns and ways of thinking.

Another factor of course was the influence of Alanon, which has long been known to ruin an alcoholic's drinking, I've seen that more than once! I no longer picked him up when he was down in the dumps, if he passed out on the couch at night I just left him to get to bed by himself. Once or twice he drove home drunk and just passed out in the car but I just left him there and went to bed. If he tried the 'poor pitiful me' line I merely laughed and ignored it. Even the odd mention of suicide didn't get much of a reaction, although I did tell him not to do it front of the kids.

It might sound cruel but in the Twelve Step world it's known as tough love. You can kill an alkie with sympathy, literally. I just let him pull out all the stops and drink himself into insanity. When he begged me to drive him down the pub for some more beer I threw the keys at him and told him to drive his own car.

"Or you can walk down, it might sober you up."

Which defeats the purpose of getting drunk I know but I'd learned plenty from Alanon and Elke, don't give the bastard an inch. Force him to confront the consequences of his alcoholism and on the Monday of Melbourne Cup weekend it all came down around him in a big way.

He'd gone to Thommo's place for the long weekend piss up but somewhere along the line he decided, in an alcoholic haze to start shooting his rifle in the air. Jeff loved his guns, he had half a dozen rifles and three shotguns and he'd take them out each weekend to clean or go shooting, these days it was just to clean them. The police were called by a nervous neighbour and at about three in the afternoon as I was having a barbecue with Elke, Sigrid and Agnetha's family the police knocked on the door. Jeff was in the back seat of the police car and when one of the cops recognised Elke he told her what had happened.

"We've come for his guns, they'll be held until he fronts court."

This was Jeff's rock bottom. He'd been in trouble with the police before, drink driving offences when he was younger, speeding tickets and an assault charge that was dropped before it reached court but this was the first time he'd been in serious trouble. Two of those guns hadn't been registered. The cop who took the guns though said he would recommend a fine rather than a custodial sentence. I was standing on the front verandah with the kids when the cop was talking to me and all that time Jeff's eyes were dead. He wound up with a big fat fine, lost his shooters licence and his guns. It knocked the wind out of his sails and for the next six weeks he brooded until finally I handed him an A.A pamphlet.

"You might not be an alkie but you've got a problem with the booze, maybe you should call them and see what they have to say."

For the first time in years, Jeff took my advice and called A.A. A guy called Bob came out to see him with an older man, Frank who knew two of Jeff's drinking mates. Jeff got to A.A a week or so before Christmas and although he did drink through Christmas and New Year, I knew it was only a matter of time. On the 3rd of January, Jeff finally threw in the towel and got himself to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, ironically enough it was the Friday night meeting at the monastery. On the Saturday night, his usual big drinking night, he was at a meeting in Forest Hills and on Sunday it was Box Hill.

It became the pattern for the next few months. He would come home, have dinner and be out to a meeting that night, I saw him less when he was sober than when he was drinking but at least the arguments had stopped and he actually seemed human. It was like the kind, gentle man that had been drowning in alcohol had emerged, a little the worse for wear but still alive and for that I was truly grateful

Two other things happened in the last couple of weeks of January, 1998. The first was when I discovered by accident that Sigrid had put in for a transfer out of Box Hill, but hadn't heard anything for five months. I made my own inquiries and found out her application had been kind of overlooked, a large organisation like Westpac tends to have an over abundance of paperwork and when I told HR that I wanted her at Boronia, it was approved over the phone.

The second thing was the death of Louise's sister, Cathy from cancer. I went to the funeral because she was my second in charge and she'd been off work on compassionate grounds. Seeing the cold reaction of her mother kind of sparked a maternal one in me. They say that nature abhors a vacuum and I took a more central role in her life when I asked her to look out for Sigrid, who had been the subject of some office gossip when she candidly admitted she was gay. It hurt me but because I was Sigrid's neighbour and friend I couldn't really be seen to be interfering.

In the end though I did take a stand verbally when Louise returned to work a week or so later, it was a new step for me, fronting up to the problem and laying down the boundaries. Louise however began spending more time with Sigrid and as it turned out I had a front row seat to the burgeoning relationship between Sigrid and Louise. I told her as much some months later but at the time I was told by Elke to just let things develop.

"We don't know what will happen between them," she told me one afternoon as we sat out on the back verandah with some cordial and a plate of banana cake.

"Louise isn't that way inclined."

"Who says she has to be?" Elke picked up a piece of cake, "it's about love not labels."

"Maybe if she was younger," I replied, "God knows, I've been there and got the tee shirt to prove it but once you get older it's harder to make the switch."

"You did it with a woman?"

"Guilty as charged," I grinned.

"What was she like?" Elke leaned back in her seat, "have you got a picture?"

"Got more than a picture, I've got two of her CDs."

Of course I had to drag them out. The Lipstick Queens had disbanded a few years ago but they'd put out two CDs, aptly named, Red Lipstick and Purple Lipstick. Elke thought Mandy was cute and I agreed with her on that count. I still thought about Mandy now and then.

"Do you still see her?"

"God no, I know she went to L.A to audition for a band after the Lipstick Queens broke up but after we broke up it was like everything got broken," I fidgeted. "I don't hate her for what happened, it was good sex, she certainly knew how to go down on me but it'd be like trying to rekindle the flame. We're both different people now, I fell in love with a mad guitarist and she fell in love with a curious straight who ended up staying straight. Now I've got three kids, a husband and I have no idea what she's doing."

"I could find her address for you, if she's living in Australia."

"Don't, please," I shot her a pained look, "I know you're trying to help but let's just let sleeping dogs lie, if we're meant to meet up again then it's up to the Higher Power."

Little did I know I would be reunited with Mandy but under the most tragic circumstances and that's all I can write for now. Next time I'll tell you the story of how Elke and I wound up together but right now I need to hit the sack.

To be continued...