The Varnished Untruth (9 page)

S
INK
, S
WIM
, S
LUNG
O
UT

We have not been in session for a while . . . Where have you been?

Back in Australia . . .

What’s it like for you to be back there?

I love it. Australia is a fantastic, diverse country and Sydney – well, as a city it’s hard to beat, but for me there’s always something deeply upsetting about it, too. I think it’s the harbour that does it. Pitches me into a deeper brooding. It’s murky in there – in my mind, I mean, not the harbour, although the part of Sydney’s waterway by Circular Quay is definitely not a place to take a dip. Much as I like scuba diving around sharks, I’d avoid the hungry, big-jawed sea critters in there. I mean, I know they don’t like the taste of us; they usually just take one bite and spit us out but, well, that one bite might be a rather important body part.

On the first night of my latest trip to Sydney I couldn’t sleep. Jetlagged and bloated, I jogged out of my harbour-side hotel at 2am and headed south along the shoreline towards the Opera House. I calculated that from there to the Opera House and back was 3.5km (it said so on my joggers’ map) so I had to do three round trips to make up 10km. See, against my better judgment, I’ve agreed to take part in a swimming relay across the Irish Sea, which is going to take every ounce of strength, guts and determination I have. What is WRONG with me?

We will eventually understand why you push yourself so hard, but go on
. . .

OK, well, 10km was the distance I had to run to increase my fitness for the challenge. As I sprinted along the stone wall right on the harbour’s edge, I was appalled to see a number of plastic bags floating close by. I stopped and looked round for a stick with which to haul them out, then suddenly I realized they were large, pale jellyfish. That sent my anxiety soaring. See, what’s most daunting for me about this upcoming ocean swim is not the fact that it’s three times further than the English Channel; not the fact that the water is close to freezing, or that thirty different types of sharks pass by the region; it is not even the fear that the water might still be radioactive a good thirty years after the Sellafield nuclear accident. No, it’s the Lion’s Mane – one of the largest species of jellyfish in the world – that is what really scares me. Did you know this giant’s body alone has been known to grow to a whopping twenty centimetres, each with 800 reddish, three-metre-long tentacles? They have a terrible, blistering sting that can cause muscular cramp, even respiratory and heart problems. Since I’ll be swimming partly during the night time, it will be impossible to see these trailing monsters. My sleep is frequently disturbed by visions of my opening my mouth to take a large breath and ingesting a section of three-metre-long tentacle.

You’re having nightmares about the jellyfish?

Yeah, would they sting my throat, causing it to swell and constrict my windpipe and, well, game over?

Hmmm. Let’s see . . . jellyfish with long, penile-shaped tentacles . . .

Oh, come on, doctor! Sometimes a jellyfish is just a jellyfish . . . But I do find myself ruminating about it . . . Perhaps between now and September I could learn how to perform – while swimming – a do-it-yourself tracheotomy. I need to work on that. I’m not kidding. See, that’s who I am – I push myself. I guess I internalized my parents’ work ethic that I used to despise, and now I’m one of them. I’m learning to play more and my serendipitous return to dancing has helped enormously but, basically, I’m still a nerd.

You really hate the idea of being perceived as studious and dull . . .

Mmm.

Rather like your parents . . .

Gotcha! But I want to finish telling you about my run. No one was about, and though it’s quite dark around Circular Quay in parts, I knew I had to finish this circuit before the sun rose because by 9am it would be too hot to move. It crossed my mind that the shadowy corners here and there made this a little risky, and for once I was grateful for the presence of security cameras. I knew my husband would be horrified if he knew I was doing this alone, but he was asleep after a triumphant evening on stage at the famous, white-sailed building for which I was now heading. My path was lined with mauve palm tree shadows, rows of iron benches and a few forlorn coffee shops. Suddenly, I was really struck by how much Circular Quay has changed. When I was a schoolgirl, crossing the harbour every day by ferry to attend the Sydney Church of England Girls’ Grammar School, I never saw a sign saying ‘Have you sorbet’d today?’ Sorbet’d today?! I didn’t know what a sorbet was until I was at least thirty. No, Sydney in those days was very much a vanilla ice cream kind of town. I turned a corner and found myself face-to-face with the same jetty I approached every day of my secondary school life, chug-chugging to and from Woolwich, on the green-and-yellow Sydney Harbour ferries. The vessels were sitting there, empty and dark, but they seemed just the same – wooden workhorses smelling of oil, salt and sweat. As the wash swept against the jetty, I heard the clank of the gangplank and I noticed my anxiety rising. It was horribly familiar.

You think that environment triggered your anxiety? Can you remember exactly where your mind was going?

Yes. My mantras of worry were really taking hold: ‘Perhaps my knees will give out. Maybe I’ll have to stop after the first round trip. Maybe it’ll take too long.’ But the rational part of me was questioning the child within: ‘What exactly is the problem? You’ve got until dawn, and even beyond. What else are you going to do at this time of night? It’s cool now – a great opportunity.’ I breathed a bit deeper. I had to tell myself: ‘This is not exactly over-taxing me. Fresh from
Strictly
I am fitter than I was when I was twenty. What am I really worrying about? Why am I always so anxious to get on to the next “thing”? Why can’t I just enjoy the moment? Am I just a giant rat on a cosmically operated treadmill?’ On the other hand, this demon I have inside me – the one who drives, drives, drives – he has challenged me to do the myriad of extraordinary things I’ve done in my life, and continue to do. But, the thing is, I don’t think my anxiety was just about the run; there was something else I couldn’t put my finger on . . .

Hmmm. Let’s see – your ferry trips began after your trip to Europe, didn’t they . . .?

Yes. When I started secondary school. At that time I was really antsy. When we returned to Sydney from London at the end of 1961, I just couldn’t settle down. At twelve years old, I’d seen my future and was unwilling to let it go. But for now I had to make the transition to grammar school. My parents marched me to the popular, central department store, David Jones, and bought my new school uniform: navy smock, white blouse, tie, straw hat and gloves. And (this is hard to believe) they had my feet x-rayed to ensure my school shoes fit, a well-dodgy practice that was considered useful and safe in those days. But everything had to be right. At the Sydney Church of England Girls’ Grammar School (SCEGGS), the wearing of the uniform was serious business. All pupils carried cards that a teacher or prefect could sign if they saw you breaking a rule, such as taking off your hat in public (three signatures led to detention). I sat outside on the ferry twice a day, every school day for many years, firmly holding my hat on in the blustering winds. Oh, I was a rule-keeper all right – until I finally snapped (fasten your seat-belt now, because my teenage story is going to get a bit rocky).

I’m so afraid of telling this next bit. See, initially, I went through the motions of following the rigorous academic studies in that school for high-flyers, but, internally, I was raging at my parents. Maths, Latin, Science. Didn’t they understand it just wasn’t possible to do what they had done? Expose someone to an environment where they feel truly appreciated, then whisk it all away again. It was like a one-time exposure to crack cocaine. No one thought I was special at my new school, in fact, I felt I was largely despised for not being like everyone else. I became aware of yet another reason why my classmates might reject me: they tended to be from wealthy families and lived in lovely sandstone houses in fashionable North Shore suburbs; I was not, did not. No one at school had heard of Boronia Park, but it was near Gladesville and Ryde, which were decidedly unswish.

Worst of all, there was nowhere to continue my acting classes, and finding a suitable ballet class was difficult. I joined a dance school in the centre of Sydney, but that meant walking there after school and not getting home until very late. I already travelled three hours’ round trip to school (bus to Hunter’s Hill, then a cross-harbour ferry, then another bus to Darlinghurst) and, with all the homework I was given, I was often exhausted. But one of the deepest regrets of my whole life is giving up ballet. It was a huge loss in my life, and I think it must have made me quite depressed.

Well, all that hard physical exercise had helped keep your anxiety at bay. But without it . . .

Oh yes . . . I was struggling in many ways. My nightly prayer regime continued to be overwhelmingly long and comprehensive, making my knees stiff and raw. The self-flagellating practices of medieval monks would have made perfect sense to me. I began to have trouble concentrating and started slipping from being an excellent student to a mediocre one who sometimes neglected her homework. I began to tell lies to my fellow classmates in a pitiful attempt to fit in: ‘I go surfing every weekend. I have an aqua and white surfboard. I have a gorgeous blonde boyfriend.’ But they didn’t buy a word of it; I was pasty-white with pimples, had short, lank, mousy hair and braces on my teeth. Popular girls were pretty, tanned and athletic, with clear skin and real boyfriends. I did have two or three school friends: Pinkie, Pauline and a lovely Dutch girl called Phillipa. They were remarkably tolerant of my weird, miserable self. As for my sisters, I felt isolated from them. Deep down I may even have resented them for having escaped the expectations that were placed on me. But it also seemed to me that I shouldered a burden I should not inflict on them: at some level I understood that by being the oldest, the ‘guinea pig’, I was protecting them from misery.

When my father became the organist and choir master at a local Anglican church, my mother and I were seconded as choir members. That meant endless singing practice around the piano with my father. He tried to train me to sound like the boy sopranos whose pure, clear voices he much preferred. Since I had a natural, female vibrato, this was an impossible and frustrating task. At school we had chapel every morning and, for reasons I cannot fathom, I also joined the school choir. That was an awful lot of church, and sometimes it seemed to me that I lived not in the bright Australian sunlight, but in shadowy, dark-wood choir stalls surrounded by cool, grey stone. I was sent to piano lessons from the age of thirteen. I was quite musical and eventually trained at Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music, but I hated it because it meant more pressure, higher expectations, and even more practising. And when our local Sunday school fell short of a pianist I was asked to step in to accompany the hymns, which led to torturous Sunday mornings. Wracked with anxiety, I would flee red-faced after making dreadfully obvious mistakes every time.

I pleaded for a guitar and was thrilled when I finally received one for my fourteenth birthday. I spent hour upon hour sitting on my bed producing soulful renderings of Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary songs. My voice was high and warbling – painful for the listener, I imagine – but it was the true beginning of my teenage bid for individualism and it felt comforting and real. I discovered Bob Dylan, who was a revelation and could almost be credited with saving me from complete despair. His poetry spoke to me, and it seemed like something personal I had that did not belong to my parents. Well, they’d never relate to: ‘Yes, and how many years can some people exist / Before they’re allowed to be free?’ But I certainly did.

I tried to fit in at school by keeping up with popular trends, but I did not have access to pop music at home (I learned folk songs by reading sheet music with chord charts). When the Beatles visited Sydney in June 1964 (I was fourteen) I was aware that my classmates were crazy about them, and joined the pack of truants who went along to chant ‘John! Paul! George! Ringo!’ outside their hotel in King’s Cross, but when everyone started singing ‘Love, love me do’, I was probably the only one in the crowd who didn’t know the words. I could never have predicted that a decade or two later I would get to know Paul and George – or that Ringo and his wife Barbara would attend my wedding.

One day a notice was posted on the school bulletin board, encouraging girls to try out for a musical play,
Down in the Valley
by Kurt Weill, a co-production with a nearby boys’ school, Cranbrook. I turned up and sang for Gilbert Jones, the teacher who was directing it, and was immediately cast as the
ingénue
. Suddenly, there was hope in my life again. I absolutely loved performing at Cranbrook. Not only was it a chance to return to the stage, but I was able to socialize with boys – something that had been largely missing from my life. I definitely liked boys; in fact, I was a thorough, budding sexpot (still am).
Down in the Valley
was a great success, and it revived my spirits. I followed that by joining the cast of
Our Town
and then appearing in a poetry evening, and came to understand that I really belonged in the performing arts.

But when my thespian fun at Cranbrook ended, I became miserable again. I hated school and, except for English, found the lessons boring and tedious. Oh, don’t get me wrong, SCEGGS was an excellent school that provided a fine education for almost every girl who attended it. But, given my state of mind – my confusion, frustration, and often despair – I needed serious help in order to take advantage of it. At home, my parents seemed to be struggling. I noticed tension between them, and sometimes there were loud fights. I gathered most of this was about work – they had teamed up professionally at the same university so I guess that brought its own challenges. After dinner they sat together at the kitchen table with photographs they’d taken of microscopic samples, anxiously counting cancerous cells. Fun times. I suppose it was a case of ‘publish or perish’.