Between Cas and cooking, I haven’t had the energy to write in my exercise book for a long time. But tonight something happened which I can’t get out of my mind, so maybe if I write it down, I can banish the ghosts and get some much-needed sleep.
Jim summoned me to an emergency meeting upstairs in their flat, which is a curious mixture of frilly Bob and unvarnished Jim. I’ve known for ages that the Harley Davidson motorbike chained to our plane tree on Victoria Street belongs to Jim, so it wasn’t a surprise to find Harley Davidson posters plastered on the walls. They are always at me to come to their meetings, a regular event, but I’ve resisted them until tonight—sheer cowardice, I admit. I just didn’t think I wanted to get mixed up too closely with a group of women who mostly seem to have men’s names—Frankie, Billie, Joe, Robbo, Ron, Bert and so on. I love Jim and Bob because they are a part of The House and Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz has told me sternly that Lezzos have a hard row to hoe (her metaphors are always wonderful, but I never know when she’s pulling my leg, the old horror). When Jim begged me to come tonight, I understood that I was on trial, so I went.
Much to my surprise, Toby was there. So was Klaus. No Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz, however. There were six women I didn’t know. One, who was introduced to me as Joe, is a barrister—a Q.C., in fact. That’s awesome, to get to the top of the legal tree in a skirt. Or rather, a tailored suit. Stop it, Harriet! This is not the time to digress. I think my idle remarks are because I’m dodging having to put the subject of the meeting on paper.
The players in the drama weren’t present—Frankie and Olivia. I gathered that Frankie is a bit of a Lesbian idol, very dynamic and attractive, also very masculine. She had just taken up with Olivia, who is nineteen, very pretty, and from a stinking-rich family. When Olivia’s father found out about his daughter’s sexual inclinations, he didn’t just hit the roof, he set out to teach her a lesson. So he pulled a few strings that saw Frankie and Olivia snatched off the footpath where they were walking their dog and hauled to the holding-cells in a cop shop somewhere on the outer rim of Sydney. There they were raped non-stop by a dozen of the Boys in Blue all last night, then this morning at dawn they were chucked onto the road outside Milson’s Point station, their dead dog too. Both of them are in the Mater Hospital, brutally damaged.
I sat there feeling so sick that I thought I’d have to excuse myself and lose my dinner, but pride kept my gorge down, I hung on. After one look at my face, Toby transferred himself from the far side of the room and sat down on the floor next to me, sneaked his hand out to grab mine. I clenched it like grim death. Joe the Q.C. was talking about legal action, but Robbo said that Frankie refused to give evidence, and poor little Olivia was going to be transferred to the acute psych unit at Rozelle as soon as she was physically well enough to be discharged from the Mater.
After the anger and the bluster died down, they started to talk about what it was like to be a Lez, probably because I was there. Robbo said that she’d once been married and had a couple of kids, but her husband divorced her citing a female co-respondent, and she isn’t allowed to see her children unless she can prove that she isn’t a “corrupting influence”. Two of them had been sexually assaulted by their fathers as young children, one’s mother had “sold” her to a rich old man whose preference was for anal sex with little girls. They all bore some sort of scars, physical or psychic. Jim and Bob were tame compared to the rest. All Jim had suffered was to be thrown out by her parents because she liked to wear men’s clothes. Bob’s parents, who live in the bush, have no idea that Jim is a female.
Afterwards Toby took me up to his garret and fed me coffee laced with brandy while I shivered like an old soldier with a bout of malaria.
“I didn’t know it was a crime to be a Lesbian,” I said after the hot liquid settled my stomach and steadied my thumping heart. “I know it is a crime for a man to be a homosexual, but someone told me that when the legislation arrived for her consent, Queen Victoria struck out the clauses affecting women, refused to believe women could be homosexual. But if Frankie and Olivia were arrested, it must be a crime.”
“No, you’re right,” he said, refilling my mug. “It’s not a crime to be a Lez.”
“Then how could it have happened?” I asked.
“Under the lap, Harriet. Secretly. You won’t find Frankie and Olivia on the cop shop books. Some copper big-wig obliged Olivia’s daddy. I imagine the idea was to show Olivia what a good man could do, but it got out of hand. Probably after Frankie started in on the rapists. She’s not the sort to knuckle under, even in a situation like that.”
He’s so detached, Toby. I suppose all good artists are, they watch the world looking for subjects.
I’m not an ignoramus about the more repellent side of life. No one who’s worked in a hospital for over three years can be. But you never really hear the full story, especially in disciplines like X-ray, where the patients come in for their tests and then go somewhere else, and we’re rarely unbusy enough to have the time to listen to a patient’s story. When we meet for lunch or at a party or have a moment to talk among ourselves, it’s always the hot item on the gossip grapevine that’s discussed. The horror’s in seeing what comes in, what’s been done by another human being. No, I’m not an ignoramus. But I’ve been sheltered. Until I moved up to the Cross, into The House.
Tonight has been a blinding enlightenment. I can never think the same about people again. Publicly one thing, behind closed doors something very different. Dorian Gray everywhere. I don’t know who on earth Olivia’s father is, but I’ve grown up enough tonight to think that he is at peace with himself, that he blames it all on Frankie and his daughter. And I can’t bear to think of the people who prey on little children! It is a terrible world.