By RUTH CLARE
I was born into the war still raging inside my father. The DNA he gave me came charged with trauma that he didn’t know how to process, and as my life unfolded it seemed I was fated to follow in his footsteps. I, too, learnt life should be lived on guard because you never knew when the next attack would come.
Dad came of age in the era of Australia’s National Service Scheme. According to the National Archives of Australia, of the 800,000-plus men who registered between 1965 and 1972, more than 63,000 had their birthdays drawn in the lottery and served in the military. About 20,000 went to Vietnam.
Douglas Robert Callum was born on January 30, 1946. His birthday condemned him to give up the plans he had made for his own life so he could serve a country that would go on to shun and shame him. Going to war, watching his mates die and causing the deaths of others shattered his soul. He put the pieces back together again the best he could, but the clatter of machine guns always leaked through the cracks.
Most people on the outside would never get to see the damage he fought to hide, but within a family even the best disguises slip. In 1974, the year I was born, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) hadn’t been recognised as a condition. Even after it was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980, it was never something spoken about in my house..
When I was growing up, Dad rarely mentioned the Vietnam War, or his part in it. No one ever told me the way Dad behaved might have anything to do with a war. No one ever told me it wasn’t my fault. One day, after he had left our family for good, Mum said to me, “I wish you had known your father before he went to Vietnam.” I wish I had, too.
You see, my first memory is of Dad hitting me. That memory is among the most vivid I have, burned deep into my brain by the chemicals of fear, but it is far from the only recollection I have of his violence.
My childhood, and that of my brother, David, and sister, Kerstin, was spent walking along a razor edge of expectations that were impossible to meet. There was no room for mistakes. No allowance for the fact that we were small and learning. Sticking a sticker on a wall. Leaving a bike in the yard. Tripping and hurting myself. Running through the house. The impulses of early childhood were the things most likely to evoke his rage.
Sometimes it was a few slaps. Other times he would lose control. I would run to escape him, only to have him drag me out of the places I hid so he could pound me more. But in the 11 years he lived with us, he never hit Mum. That happened two years later, when I was 13.
My eyes snapped open as I listened for the sound that had invaded my dream.
Ears straining, I scanned the shadows of my room, moving from open cupboard door to piles of clothes on the floor. Everything was exactly where I had left it. Was it the phone? Those calls from Dad and Brenda, the woman he’d left Mum for a few years earlier when I was in year 9, had stopped some time ago. I couldn’t imagine it was them calling.
I listened to the noiselessness of a small town past midnight for another long moment. With my eyes open, it seemed much more likely the noise had just been part of my dream. I turned over.
“Aah! Eh!” I froze. What was that? Who was that? I looked at the clock. Eleven past two. Why was anyone even awake?
“Help! Help!” I couldn’t tell whose voice it was, but someone was in trouble. I was out of bed and down the hall before I felt my feet touch the ground. In the darkness I nearly ran into my brother David, who was nine. I wanted to ask him what he had seen, but I didn’t want to give away our position. I put my finger to my lips and strained to hear more.
“Help! Somebody help!” This time there was no mistaking the voice. It was Mum, her voice a muted scream. I streaked past David to the kitchen.
Stopping at the doorway, I took a moment to adjust to the brightness of the fluorescent light. I saw that Dad had Mum pinned to the ground. He was kneeling on top of her with the weight of one knee pressed across her thighs, his hand on her shoulder. Her shirt buttons had been popped open exposing her lacy bra. The yeasty smell of beer smacked into me and I saw puddles of amber liquid and empty beer bottles strewn over the linoleum floor. How long had I been sleeping through this? Whatever this was.
A hundred thoughts flew into my head. This was the first time I had seen Dad in nearly a year. What? Why?
David followed close behind and I looked back at him for a moment, wondering how much more he had seen. He was wearing his blue-and-red dinosaur pyjamas and his hair was poking out at crazy angles. I didn’t know how to protect him from this. “You should go back to bed,” I said.
“No. I’m staying with you.” He moved closer to me.
Dad was looking up at me, his face unrecognisable. Pulled by inner demons, his eyes were smaller and cheeks flattened, emphasising a mouth locked in a vicious sneer. Mum’s black eyes seemed to fill her entire face. She was shaking uncontrollably, terror pouring off her in waves.
“Get off her, Dad!” I ran over and furiously hit his shoulder, shoving to try to unbalance him. He braced his position and grabbed my arm, twisting it and pushing me away. Blood pounded in my ears and I immediately went back to him, pushing and punching. “Leave her alone! Get off her! You don’t live here anymore! You’re not allowed to be here! Get off her!”
He swatted me away and repositioned himself more firmly on top of Mum, then gave me a superior smile. I abandoned my ineffectual assault and turned my attention to Mum.
Kneeling down next to her, I put her head in my lap, stroking her hair and looking into her terrified eyes. “Are you okay, Mum?” Before she could answer, Dad sprang out of his position and wrenched me away from her. The back of her head thudded heavily to the ground with a noise that made me feel sick. He picked me up and threw me across the room into the dishwasher. My head smashed into the bench above. His voice was a roar. “No! Don’t you comfort her! You won’t take her side when you know.”
He locked eyes with Mum and the menacing look came over his face again. “Tell them. Tell them what a slut you are.”
“Yes.” Mum’s voice was a rasping whisper. She didn’t take her eyes off Dad.
“Yes, what?” The sarcastic tone I hadn’t heard for so long was back.
“Yes, it’s true.”
“Tell them how you went out with a man you didn’t know tonight and f…ed him at his place.” The sick smile on his face came through in his tone. He was enjoying this.
“Yes.”
“Tell them I’m not the only one who’s f…ed someone else now.”
“Yes.” It was like we weren’t in the room. Their focus was only each other, hunter and prey.
Mum looked at us, but her eyes dropped down. She looked as if made of porcelain. Like the crush of his strong hand might shatter her face. The deepest part of my heart ached. Tears poured down my cheeks. I had no idea what to do. I was desperate to comfort Mum, but I didn’t want Dad to smash me again. I ignored Dad and looked at Mum. “It doesn’t matter what you say or what you did, Mum. We still love you no matter what.”
Dad threw Mum’s face away. “It’s always the same with you kids! Your mum can do no wrong. I’m always the bad one! Always my fault. I’m sick of it!”
Mum and Dad stared only at each other. I didn’t want to leave Mum here, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had to call the police. I got up off the floor. “You’ll be all right, Mum. I promise.”
I grabbed David by the hand and ran down the back stairs. The night air was damp against my nightie and my teeth began to chatter. “I’m going to call the police.” I dragged him toward the phone sitting on the bench in the laundry. Just as I was about to pick it up, I had a thought. “If we dial from down here the phone will make a noise upstairs. Dad’ll know what we’re doing. We have to go to Mrs Harper’s and call from there.”
David nodded his agreement and we raced off across the lawn to the yard next door. I took her front steps two at a time and banged on the door. The noise echoed like a gunshot into the quiet street. “Mrs Harper!” I yelled as loud as I could and banged on the door again. “It’s Ruth from next door!” The front windows turned yellow as a light switched on.
Her hand was still holding the door open, blocking access to her house. I felt like a switch I didn’t know I had in my body had been turned on. I bounced from one foot to the other as the rest of the world moved in slow motion. What was happening to Mum while we stood there? “Can we come in and call the police?”
“Yes, yes, come in.” She stepped back and allowed us entry.
I could see the phone. I was desperate to grab it, but I didn’t want to seem rude. My mind flashed up a picture of Dad on top of Mum, bottle top in hand. Had he touched her eyes yet?
She finally lifted the receiver and dialled. Each number took 500 years to click back into place. At last she spoke to someone. “Hello. My name is Mrs Harper. I’m calling on behalf of a family who live next door to me. There seems to be some kind of domestic disturbance. Do you think you could send someone out?”
In less than 10 minutes flashing lights strobed through the room. “Thanks, Mrs Harper. Don’t worry about coming with us. We’ll be fine. Thanks.”
I raced out the front door and sprinted across the lawn to our place. When I arrived home, the lights were still on in the kitchen, but Mum and Dad were no longer there. I couldn’t see any blood. Maybe he had removed her body.
There was a loud knock on the front door. I raced down the dark hallway to open it. Just as I was about to grab the handle, Dad stepped out of the shadows. He didn’t look in my direction as he opened the door.
- Canberra Times