The Courtship of Rachel Pt. 04

Our wedding dresses were another major difference and Birgit had her own input here, instead of lashing out on dresses we'd only wear once, she suggested that we buy plainer dresses and just accessorise them with lace and silk. It was a far more sensible solution than the more traditional one dress for one day, it meant we could wear them for other occasions. Danish practicality at its finest I thought!

The biggest surprise however was seeing Birgit's boss, Ken walk her down the aisle, she was very secretive about who was going to walk her down an aisle made from silk in the fabrics class at school. She only told me that he was very handsome and the perfect gentleman. Because it was her first wedding I'd taken the traditional groom role and waited for her at the 'altar.' which was the speaker's stand borrowed from the school for the day and covered with a white cloth. I remember my father's words to me as we watched Birgit coming up the aisle on Ken's arm.

"I envy you, honey, at this point I really envy you."

I blushed at his subtle double meaning. Dad is the perfect gentleman but every now and then he drops a subtle suggestive line that almost goes unnoticed because you're not expecting it.

"Dad," I murmured, "that's my wife."

"And my new daughter in law," he smiled and kissed me on the cheek, "remember to say I do, it's only two words."

Our wedding vows were written by us, following a more modern tradition. We have them in a frame on the bedroom wall to remind ourselves that despite the fact that gay marriage wasn't legalised back then our vows were still as deep and unshakeable as those witnessed by a priest.

I, having forsaken all others do take you as my best friend and partner, I give myself to you wholly and without reserve until death do us part.

We left out the through sickness and health etc. because that was kind of obvious.

But if you think I'm going to write about our honeymoon night you are so wrong, that night was shared by two people and neither of us are telling anyone else!

I will talk about the honeymoon in Europe. To be honest, despite Birgit's reassurances, it was a little disconcerting to have a mother in law who treated me as a daughter and not a rival. One of the first things Hanne did when I woke up that first morning in Copenhagen was to take me down to Netto's to buy some fresh bread. On the way back we stopped off for a coffee at her favourite café, she knew the owner, Pia and introduced me to her as 'my daughter in law from Australia.' Pia greeted me with a big smile.

"So, we finally meet, she has been talking about you for weeks now."

It brought a lump to my throat because I've no doubt Eileen had talked about me but she certainly wasn't saying nice things. When I told Birgit later that day she merely smiled as she snuggled up to me on the couch.

"I warned you, family is important in Denmark. She really does think of you as a daughter."

That relationship has only deepened over the years and I have no qualms calling her mum to this day.

The rest of our honeymoon in Europe and Britain was a virtual feast for the eyes and a feast in other ways too! Our lovemaking for the most part was confined to late at night when the kids were finally in bed, although when we visited Birgit's friends in Sweden they took the kids to Uppsala for the day to give us the whole day together. That also happened in Copenhagen as well by the way, and taking the kids along helped lay a solid foundation because we were holidaying as a family and not just as honeymooners. I'm not saying couples shouldn't have the traditional honeymoon, but for me it certainly helped allay my fears about having another woman in such close contact with my kids. As a single parent I'd fallen into the familiar mode to be both mum and dad, which is fine but I've seen many relationships break up when a new partner becomes part of the family unit.

Now I have to leave this as Anna has just popped in with a new blouse.

***

Well this is a rare treat. Anna was given vouchers for a spa weekend at Daylesford a while back but because she and Astrid are leaving for Heathrow the day after tomorrow she decided to give them to Birgit and I. We got talking about my memoirs and that was an interesting coincidence because I was just getting to her part in my story.

Anna came into our lives when I decided to sell the house in Essendon so that we could get our own place, which brought Evil Eileen and I together for one final confrontation. She'd been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer at the time but managed to rise from her sick bed one last time to put a stop to me. I called Maggie and she wasn't surprised at all.

"She's a fucking bitch, but don't worry I know someone who can take care of her."

That someone was Anna Hanford who ran her own law firm in the city with two smaller offices in the outer east and west respectively. My first impression of Anna made me think of the old saying, good things come in small packages because she's a few inches shorter than me but her overall demeanour is quiet confidence. She didn't blink when I went into the background behind the breakdown of my marriage and then she dropped the clanger.

"That doesn't surprise me at all," her eyes shifted to Birgit, "I came up against him when I was defending a guy accused of armed robbery. It was a case of mistaken identity, he knew the guys who'd committed the robbery but hadn't taken part in the planning or execution. The reason the cops had charged him was simply because he wouldn't talk, more out of fear of reprisal than any sense of loyalty to his old mates. Lewis was so enraged when the magistrate threw the case out of court that he actually grabbed my shoulder in the street and told me he knew where I lived. I just stared him down and said that didn't surprise me and I certainly wasn't scared," she paused to take another sip of coffee.

"Less than twelve hours later a very contrite Lewis appeared in the foyer of my office to apologise for his outburst outside the court and begging me not to take the matter further. I'd been on the phone to his boss threatening to do exactly that. I accepted his apology at the time but Lewis was always a wild card. He was known as a leg breaker in the circles I moved in, when the cops played their good cop, bad cop routine he was always the bad cop," her eyes twinkled.

"The most amusing part of that encounter was his vain attempt at flirting in a clumsy kind of way, he must have known I was that way inclined but I think he thought like a lot of men I've known, that a lesbian is really just waiting for the right man."

"Oh, so you're," I stopped.

"I've never had a cock inside me yet," she nudged Darren's leg, "but I've got a lot of male friends who I can trust. Darren is one of my brightest junior partners. I can't take the case because of my workload as a QC but he's part of my civil branch and this particular case has piqued my interest so we'll take it on pro bono."

"Oh, okay," I nudged my glasses further up my nose, "so we only pay if you win."

"Oh we'll win all right," Anna's eyes flickered over the paperwork on the table, "but when I say pro bono, I really mean it. When we win I want nothing more out of it than the satisfaction of seeing you get the money."

It was such an unusual arrangement that I actually pushed back against the couch. I've learned over the years that Anna does do that from time to time and because she was just over here I actually asked her about it.

"Lawyering is an incredibly lucrative profession," she told me.

"I've certainly made a lot of money out of it but my mentor told me that we must never lose sight of the fact that we're dealing with real people. He used to tell me that now and then it was good practice to take a case pro bono and instead of taking your fee, take away your sense of achievement. Frank's reasoning behind it was that it kept you centred, I don't do that often because people talk and everyone wants a lawyer just like that. Your case appealed to me because of what he'd done to me and I could see that taking my fee would mean less money for you."

In a world of cut-throat lawyers, Anna stands out from the pack for just that alone and then we have her dressmaking abilities. It surprised me to find that someone with so much money would actually bother to make something as ordinary as a plain white blouse, but Anna has always said that creating her own clothes gives her both personal satisfaction and an interest that is totally removed from her normal routine.

"I learned it from mum when she was alive and when I started out in law it was a cheap and easy way to make sharp suits, but along the way I also found it was a way to remove myself from the cases I was working. You wouldn't believe the amount of insights I've gained whilst making my own clothes, and my list of successful cases is proof."

Suffice it to say, Darren won that case for me quite convincingly. In fact the judge seemed a little surprised that Eileen's lawyer had pressed forward with such an open and shut case. I was in court the day the verdict was handed down even though my presence wasn't required. I just wanted to be there to hear it for myself. I remember quite vividly the look Eileen gave me as we exited the court house that day. It was as if she was already dead. She died not long afterwards and with her death it seemed like a spring thaw as the icy grip over her family began to fade. Granted I'm not on their Christmas list but one of my sisters in law has conceded that Lewis was always going to come to a bad end.

Not long after the case was settled Anna dropped in to tell us about a house a couple of doors from her Mt Evelyn home.

"I know the owners well, but they're after a quick sale because they're now separated."

The house was well within my price range and came with an in ground pool and a large back yard, we moved in the following month and finally had enough room for all of us. Over the years we've added an extension, which became Tess's sewing room. I've had offers over the years from real estate agents hoping for a quick sale but you get used to that when you buy a home, cold callers knocking on your door trying to get you to sell up.

And speaking of the house, it's my turn to clean the bloody pool! The next time I write I'll tell you more about the way we organised our daily routine and the household.

***

Okay I'm back now after a day away from my memoirs. We saw Anna and Astrid off at the airport, it's Astrid's first trip to Europe and she's literally buzzing with excitement. I've known that woman for years and she's become a regular visitor at our house, even when she was working at parlour she was always welcome. Prior to meeting Birgit I think I might have looked on Astrid differently but Birgit has that Danish inclusiveness rooted in her DNA. To her, Astrid was just doing a job few women could do and that made her all the more interesting.

Birgit has certainly softened my views on a lot of things because she works towards a compromise, it's a Scandinavian thing, trust me! And to be honest it's also the Australia I remember most vividly from my childhood. We had a lot of kids from different cultures and sure we called each other names, we fought with them and befriended them, learned how to swear in different languages and when we were old enough married them. I remember a friend of Lewis's in a drunken moment of clarity saying that when you arrived in Australia you left your bigotry at customs and didn't get it back until you left. It was about the time of the Good Friday talks and Lewis was ranting about the bloody Orange plague when his mate intervened.

Tess started this process with her first story, A Tale of Two Mothers and I would be failing in my duty if I didn't talk more about how Birgit and I raised Paul and Tess. With Paul it was very much a matter of gradually stepping back and letting him work things out for himself. He was in his mid teens when we got together and trying to become more independent. Paul was always a little in awe of Birgit. She was one of his legal guardians if you wanted to be technical about it but Birgit never tried to push that point, but I was his mother and there were times I had to step in and do the mum thing.

However being surrounded by strong women such as Birgit, Anna and later on, Astrid, as well as his two aunties did imbue Paul with a healthy appreciation for feminism. That was made very apparent when Kelly decided to join the police force. Paul was all for it despite the fact that some of his old mates thought it a bad idea, but he's drifted away from some of them. I can see a lot of his father in him though, he comes across as macho but only when it suits him. He has taken on some of Birgit's attributes though, her sense of equality and a respect for other cultures. Birgit's input into Paul's life was more along the lines of a big sister approach, she was a ready sounding board and where he might argue with me if I told him to do something, he'd listen to her suggestions and sometimes take her advice. These days he looks up to her as a best friend more than a mother and I'm okay with that because it seems to just work.

Tess was a different case altogether, she tends to look on Birgit as being her other mum, and that has a lot to do with the fact she was just twelve when we moved to Lilydale. Tess was very much a shared responsibility and I was only too happy to step back and let Birgit spend time with her, in many ways it was a relief to have another older woman guiding her. It was actually Birgit who taught her to drive, which was a relief to Tess because she'd seen the way I tried to teach Paul, it didn't go well! In the end he paid for driving lessons himself rather than be subjected to my form of teaching. Some parents are good driving instructors but I'm definitely the bad version. Birgit had the patience and wisdom to know when to let Tess have her head and when to take over.

For the last month before her test we booked some lessons with a local instructor, just to make sure everything was right and he wanted to know the name of her instructor.

"There's not an awful lot more I can teach her."

I just looked at the house, Birgit was inside doing something and I smiled.

"It's my partner, Birgit."

"Well if she wants to do some part time instructing, I'm always looking for good teachers."

Birgit laughed when I told her.

"I am a teacher, it's what I do best."

Which makes sense now that I read what I've just written. Birgit is above all a teacher, not just of foreign languages but life in general. The way she shares that information tends to fire up your imagination. I remember one time when Tess was sixteen and she got this crazy notion to become a motor mechanic. It was a discussion at the dinner table and afterwards I thought nothing of it, but a week or so later I came home to find Birgit and Tess lifting an old lawnmower out of her boot and when I asked what was wrong with our lawnmower Birgit smiled.

"Nothing, this our project lawnmower."

Apparently she'd picked up a very old lawnmower that needed reconditioning and between the two of them they decided to buy it and fix it up. It was a bizarre situation that saw me filming some of it because neither of them knew what the hell they were doing. They downloaded a manual from the Internet and watched lots of You Tube videos. Paul was still at home then but working for a local builder and it must have been the subject of conversation at work too. Because his boss dropped him off one night and came into the garage to see this lawnmower. Birgit was only too happy to have him show her how to change the rings and bearings.

Eventually he bought the lawnmower off her but once the mower was gone, Tess decided that while she was fascinated by the process it wasn't for her.

"But at least now I can do a head job."

I stared at Birgit and my parter burst out laughing.

"A head job is changing the head gasket, honey."

English is such a bizarre language, there's so many different meanings for the same word!

One thing Tess hasn't mentioned however are the two holidays we had in Denmark after she turned seventeen. We had a few weeks not long while she was sixteen and one when she turned twenty. Birgit's parents have been over once, but I'm sure Tess will tell you all about that visit because it was the catalyst that led to her moving over there with Karin.

However, despite the fact we hadn't been in physical contact with each other, we were in regular contact via telephone and Facebook. Hanne and Gustav are two people who really are my second parents, there's nothing I wouldn't tell them about myself because I know I won't risk rejection by being honest.

One of those issues concerns Birgit's decision not to go down the IVF route. It was while we were on our first holiday in Denmark and I'd actually raised it with Birgit but she refused to even think about it. I eventually talked to Hanne about it but she understood it completely.

"If she has her own child, there is the danger she might give it preferential treatment and that's not the way Birgit would want things."

It was an enormous sacrifice to make and at first I had difficulty understanding it because she loves kids but when Birgit married me she took her role as second mother very seriously indeed. And on the subject of marriage we supported the recent vote to legalise same sex marriage but not once did we ever consider going down that route ourselves. We took our vows seriously back then, going through a renewal of vows ceremony with a minister or priest, even for sentimental reasons didn't appeal to us in the slightest. The Australian government may not have called us married but in our eyes we were married that day at Lilydale Lake. I fell in love with a woman and today she still fills me with hope, and we have had our disagreements but one thing we agreed on was that we should never go to bed without saying sorry.

Healthy relationships are like a healthy exercise regime. It takes effort and along the way you will have to change your mind on issues that were dear to your heart. I hear talk about lesbian couples losing interest in sex and I have to smile at that because it's not only lesbians who suffer from that phenomenon. Straights have the same problem and while we don't have sex as often as we did when we were first married it's still on the table, sometimes literally! Sex is one of the most over talked about subjects I can think of, everyone has their own opinion on how and why and when it should be done.

My opinion is that sex is simply making love to your partner, setting aside your own needs and focusing on the other. There are no set rules between consenting adults and you should never be afraid to try something new.

In hindsight looking back over the last twelve years I can't think of anything I could have done to make it better and I'm reminded of one of my favourite sayings by Eleanor Roosevelt. People are as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Well that's it from me. Now my daughter will tell you more about Karin and her decision to leave Australia for a few years. I have to read Anna's first draft, she's in London right now and the new environment has sparked her imagination.