Nick the Wrecker and LSD night at The Hancocks
Without Prejudice
It all began so innocently. On our behalf, anyway, not so sure about Nick.
In the late 70's my girlfriend and neighbour, Syl, who was married, but on one of her "Breaks" fell in love or lust instantly with a friend of Bob's, my husband at the time. The "Guy" she fell in love with was nicknamed Nick The Wrecker. Nick was a Russian, who had grown up in the USA and had a great accent, a mix of Yankee and Russian, a heady mix. To me I could not see what she was raving on about, he was nice enough to me and a great mate to Bob.
He was rich, powerful and endlessly charming, but he was a small man, bearded and dapper but I just found him a bit off putting in some way. Bob adored him and we all used to go to The Galaxy Nightclub in the city to party. That was where he and Syl had met and from day one she was "in lurve". Bob and I were in love with each other at that time, Lauren was still a baby in nappies then.
So one night Syl had persuaded me to ask Bob to ask Nick to come over to our house for dinner. Syl came in the afternoon and started cooking up a storm; We were having, Satay skewers with her own home made peanut sauce (To die for!) Balmi, Nasi Goreng, Gado Gado and her famous chocolate puffs with fresh cream. Syl was Slovenian and a mad cook, the best. Bob arrived home from work, we had our own small factory then, fences and gates. And we all had a drink and waited for our honoured guest and waited and waited.
Bob ended up ringing up Nick and he was stoned and sitting in his spa. Nick lived on this amazing farm at Lysterfield, he was a millionaire and his lifestyle was incredible. He liked a joint now and then and loved to drink, smoke cigars like some little Napoleon,I thought he was going out with an incredibly good looking Dutch Girl at that time. Or had been, I think she had left him by then and he was living with his younger sister, Luda.
Once we had been there to his palatial home, with its horse paddocks, pool, spa and indoor sauna. It was beautiful and huge and we had felt like country bumpkins as he had taken us on the Grand Tour. I who always managed to put my foot in my mouth mentioned at dinner the last useless silly kitchen appliance I had just seen in the stores was the hot dog heater.
"Who on earth needs a hot dog heater? I had questioned.
"we have one" Nick replied, excitedly,
"We use it all the time"
Oops, ah well, that was me, I didn't get out much, with 4 kids under 10 at that time.
Anyway at the end of it all it was getting late so Bob went off to Lysterfield to fetch him. Bob said he arrived at Nicks house and searched high and low for him, finally finding him in the sauna,stoned as a maggot. So Bob fireman lifted him up and poured him in to the back seat. By the time they reached our place Nick was up and raring to go. Bob was a bit shocked at Nick's complete recovery as he knew he had been drinking bourbon and smoking joints. He stepped in to the Kitchen, shy and affable, polite, showing no signs of being stoned. Syl was charmed and started heating up food rapidly but Nick said,
"No food, coffee, much coffee"
and he pulled out of his pocket a roll of paper that looked like the caps out of a gun that were around when I was a girl. A skinny roll of paper with dots of gunpowder on that would wind through your toy gun and explode with a crack when the hammer came down. My brothers and I used to spread them out on the concrete and attack the dots with a real hammer and relish the rich sulpher smell.
We were intrigued, what were these dots??
"Something that will make you feel drunk:", Nick said
"And in the morning, no hangover",
he was so affable, grinning from ear to ear. He was our funny friend. chomping on his expensive cigar, his gold rings, bracelets and medallion glinting in the light of our humble little starter house in Keysborough. So we made coffee in small cups and Nick tore off 3 dots from the roll and placed the strips in our coffees. We all sat at the kitchen table companionably. God knows what Nick made of our old kitchen table that we had dragged home from the farm once. It was an old laminate table that had been used for cutting up pumpkins on up at the farm and looked like it. But Nick wasn't looking at the table, he was still standing, while we were seated, and he was looking down....At us.
At first I just thought he was acting "drunk", he seemed larger than life and started leaping (I.m not joking) all over the kitchen And us 3 observers, observed. I felt nailed to the chair and lethargic and watched as Nick leapt, spun, pirouetted,
"Hmm", I thought, "Seems normal."
Then he started raising his voice and getting angry.
"Why do people call me Nick The Wrecker ???", he questioned.
"i've never fucking wrecked anything"
We all nodded in assent. We were like subdued little lambs being led to the slaughter. He pointed at the clock on the wall behind us, we slowly swiveled our heads around. to look at the clock, like puppets on a string,
"Ah ha", he exclaimed and clapped his hands together in glee.
"Look at the hands going backwards"
And I swear to God the clocks hands were going backwards. Nick had lots more to say, that we should use our whole minds, not just ten percent of it. That humans do not expand their minds enough. We all nodded in unison. That he had never wrecked anything ad infinitum and then he knocked over a chair in his agitation and excitement and it looked like the chair was tumbling in slow motion. Over and over it tumbled, no noise just white white silence.
I glanced at Sylvia and thought,
"Funny, I never noticed how much like a pig Syl looks.".
Syl was fascinating and also repulsive. She had a snout with bristles coming out and her hands were pigs trotters, but blue. I couldn't understand why I had never noticed she was so ugly before. And at that time she was thinking the exact same about me. So while we two sows inspected each other, Nick left the room and called Bob in with him. I watched as Syl got up and went to the loo and I vaguely wondered if she would sit down to pee or stand seeing as she was a pig. I started to laugh at her blue hands.
Before she came back Bob reappeared and dragged me off to the hall.
"Come on, we're going to bed", he said.
I remonstrated with him.
"Our visitors have just arrived, we can't leave them here, by themselves , that would be rude"
He would hear no argument about it and I half walked, then ran to the bedroom, sensing his urgency. We rushed inside and locked the door, hiding together behind it.
"What do we do now?". I said, "We can't leave them out there on their own?"
Bob for the first time in his life seemed very hesitant, I might even say, nervous. Suddenly the air was split with really loud music, it was deafening and I hissed at Bob, that the kids would wake up.
"fuck, Janette, bugger the kids, he's going to wake up the whole neighbourhood.!!!!
We dithered behind the door for ages, not wanting to go out there, not knowing what we were facing. In the end the waking up of the kids won out and we ventured out. The music blaring. I could see music notes dancing in the air and lights. Bob yelled out to Nick.
"turn the music down". it was now reaching fever pitch.
Nick sauntered into the room and said what music????
and he pointed to our wall of eight track stereo and huge speakers and the music was not on. Nothing was on, no turntable, no amp, no lights glowed, nothing.
Bob and I looked at each other, dumb founded. We could still see the music in the air, the notes floating.
"Well music or not," Bob blustered, "You have to leave"
"Not till I have had a kiss from Janette", Nick said, and literally started chasing me around the house. All I could do was run, he had eaten something garlicky and it was like he was the garlic bulb crushed in front of me, so strong was the smell.
And weirdly he was starting to look like a little russian spy from the Mad Magazine, Spy Vs Spy. he had a long coat on, a mask and a pointy hat. I ran for my life and Bob was calling out
"Just kiss him and he'll leave"
but I wouldn't"
Bob ended up pushing him out the door and Nick pushed back and Bob ended up putting his foot on his head as Nick kneeled on the step and I grabbed the door and locked it. Nick disappeared as Syl reappeared from the bathroom, where she had spat out her 3 dots. We urged her to find him and she did and took him home.
We heaved a huge sigh of relief, went back to bed after carefully throwing the bolt on the bedroom door and then we really began to trip. We didn't even know what tripping was but we did it, we sure did it.
I went to Fiji, flying over the water to get there, not in a plane, just me, with arms outstretched, flying. I could feel the cool air, see the warm sand, smell the flowers, I dipped down into the sea and the water was like silk, so soft was it. I could see everything and then --bang-- i was back in the double bed in Keysborough. Bob was also tripping, he came back when I did. he had been to a beach, white sand, warm sun on his naked body. And he found a breast, the hugest breast he had ever seen. He encircled one with his stretched out arms, it was that big. And then he found another and thought delightedly,
"They're Janette's "
So every 30 seconds or so it seemed, we tripped away to different lands. One I went to I discovered the original language. Yes, discovered the original language of all mankind and it made such perfect sense. And another land had flat sharp people who were like cardboard cutouts, these paper people were all very elegant and looked like the belonged in the twenties, with cloche hats on the women who were holding long cigarette holders and dapper men with (wait for it--spats). I was charmed and that place was a wonderful one to me.
Suddenly I opened my eyes and said to Bob I could see Nick in the room. He was running around in his little spy outfit and I yelled at Bob to get him out, get him out. GET HIM OUT! Bob said he wasn't there. We had the most amazing lush, delightful, kiss and then we were having sex but it was like no sex we had ever had before. It was slow and erotic beyond belief, there were hands and tongues and lips and wetness and we slithered on and off each other like smooth snakes. It was un fucking believable. we couldn't stop. I would be on top and underneath and Bob was with me all the way. Finally after what seemed hours we fell asleep, exhausted.
But within minutes we were awake again, and now paranoid about where syl was and was she safe. we both got up and rang his number. Nick picked up straight away.
"Hi, you guys, ", he said.
I hung up.
"it's him". I said with dread.
Bob made me call back and we were both a bit wary of Nick then. Turned out him and Syl were having breakfast.
"I'll be seeing you, guys soon," He said.
I freaked out.
"hes coming here" I told Bob, we literally ran around freaking out, wringing our hands and not wanting to face this Man who had dosed us with something that was really strange. Nick had left his beautiful leather jacket on the chair. I peeked in the pockets and then started taking out the contents, more of the caps, weed in bags and lots and lots of money.
"He's a drug dealer". I said.
Bob was not convinced after all Nick was a big businessman, with a multi million dollar businesses, Eagle Spares in Dandenong and Nick the wreckers In Bennet Street. And there was that palatial home.
Nick duly arrived and I handed him his jacket.
"How could you do this to friends of yours". I asked him. I no longer saw him as "friend"
"listen lady, you had a good time", he replied,
He leaned over to me, all menace, now
"Now keep your mouth shut!".
There was no wanting to kiss me then. It turned out that why Bob had grabbed me and ran was that Nick had said to him
"what does it matter who sleeps with who? You could sleep with Syl and I could sleep with Janette"
Thats when Bob had grabbed me and made me flee. Bob said he would have been in on it, (liar!) but Syl was looking pig like...I was disgusted with the slimy Russian. Syl told me years later she had slept with Nick that first night but he was a "dud", but then Syl thought most men were "duds" and wanted me to write a book named 99% Of Men Are Bad In Bed and in the book would be a map, that showed easily where the anatomy of a woman was and how long to linger on each spot. Syl had the most incredible sexual experiences to relate. She was down to earth and a "wog", as she liked to call herself. She was eons older than I and I adored her.
She was probably the most liberated woman I knew in those days, she worked afternoon shift at WD and HO Wills, she smoked, she chewed and she was confident and friendly, She told me that the lady over the back of her was kissing some lover on her back step. Syl caught them red handed as she had stepped out into her backyard to sunbake. And had given a thumbs up to the woman. She was my Champion and to me at 26 a young Mother of four and her a Mother of three at 35, 3 boys, twins first and then another baby 18 months later, I used to mind her boys after school for about 12 months and her drop dead gorgeous husband came to collect them every night.
her and hubby, Con, were not long returned from Holland, where they had run a shelter for battered women. She said the women were a lazy bunch of "helpless" females. I wondered at that. Thinking I wouldn't mind a refuge myself. I was never ever to tell her or anyone of Bob's cruel and casual violence. It was our "Elephant in the room" and it was always like that with us. In fact many years later I told Syl and she screamed at me and did not believe me.
"I've never seen black eyes on you", never seen bruises" (Her son Ron was working with Bob at the time) and I was so livid I walked out of her unit and never went back. we were both rocking through our own divorces then and her pain was more palpable than mine. She had always wanted to get rid of Con, offering us her girlfriends, to pay to take him away, she was going to pay a prostitute in St Kilda to take him away. She wanted rid rid rid, and she got what she wanted. But deep down I think she regretted it. her son stopped working for Bob after a row and tried to sue him for unlawful dismissal, but he lost.
After Nick and Syl left I rang my brother in Box Hill, he was a hearing aid technologist in those days and liked a "Choof". I said 3 of the dots were still in the sink and he came over and took them away to be tested. Turns out the were LSD trips and we had each had three and Nick had had 9. Ian said it sounded like he was trying to control us. So his behaviour started to make sense. Ian laughed and asked if we had any more, he could probably sell them
Bob and I decided on the spur of the moment to go to the drags at Warrnambool for the night and we packed the kids in the Rover and threw a nappy bag in and we were off. Bob drove like a mad man, so fast and when we stopped for lunch, we were both agitated and impatient and a bit shitty, snapping in and out of flash backs. the kids were already resigned to their crazy parents.
Yvette had got up to go to the toilet the previous night and I saw her face as she rounded the corner and saw Syl and Bob and I sitting at the table, gazing reverently at Nick the Wrecker as he shimmied all over our kitchen. I remember looking at her and she was inching her way past us and trying not to goggle at us. Yvette was 8.
God knows what we were doing at the drags at Warrnambool. we had met up with one of Bob's workers there, who was car mad. But we were starting to come down then and bad painful empty feelings flooded our bodies and we were so tired. We headed off with the girls to book in to a Motel for the night and there was not one in Warrnambool with a vacancy and by the time we got home we just collapsed. "Coming down " was just horrible and I can understand why people don't want to "come down" on drugs. It is the worst bottoming out feeling you can imagine and that is the moment when you want more.
The next day we slept late, exhausted, bottoming out. The girls burst in to the room and said the Joe next door had found us a cockatoo. Bob had wanted one for ages. A girl, of course. So we were ecstatic. As we dressed and made ourselves ready in the bedroom. Bob turned to me and said, apropos of nothing.
"There is only one way I would have that stuff again. We need to go to a Motel for the weekend, without the girls, we'll take some and stay in bed all weekend, just keep having sex, I was flattered but it was not going to happen, Bob was sexually prudish, pushing me away if I tried to kiss him, hated hugs and was always tired from working. Also he could go without sex for 5 months at a time, not good for me"
Bob didn't bring Nick again. Years later Syl bought me the Herald Sun and pointed to the front page article. A man had been arrested in Bangkok for heroin importation. he had been caught with a 2 kilo plastic bag of it, the bag sitting at his feet in a cafe in Bangkok. The man was going to be machine gunned to death if found guilty. I glanced at the article and handed it back to Syl,
"So????"
"It's Nick, the Wrecker" she said
Love Janette
It all began so innocently. On our behalf, anyway, not so sure about Nick.
In the late 70's my girlfriend and neighbour, Syl, who was married, but on one of her "Breaks" fell in love or lust instantly with a friend of Bob's, my husband at the time. The "Guy" she fell in love with was nicknamed Nick The Wrecker. Nick was a Russian, who had grown up in the USA and had a great accent, a mix of Yankee and Russian, a heady mix. To me I could not see what she was raving on about, he was nice enough to me and a great mate to Bob.
He was rich, powerful and endlessly charming, but he was a small man, bearded and dapper but I just found him a bit off putting in some way. Bob adored him and we all used to go to The Galaxy Nightclub in the city to party. That was where he and Syl had met and from day one she was "in lurve". Bob and I were in love with each other at that time, Lauren was still a baby in nappies then.
So one night Syl had persuaded me to ask Bob to ask Nick to come over to our house for dinner. Syl came in the afternoon and started cooking up a storm; We were having, Satay skewers with her own home made peanut sauce (To die for!) Balmi, Nasi Goreng, Gado Gado and her famous chocolate puffs with fresh cream. Syl was Slovenian and a mad cook, the best. Bob arrived home from work, we had our own small factory then, fences and gates. And we all had a drink and waited for our honoured guest and waited and waited.
Bob ended up ringing up Nick and he was stoned and sitting in his spa. Nick lived on this amazing farm at Lysterfield, he was a millionaire and his lifestyle was incredible. He liked a joint now and then and loved to drink, smoke cigars like some little Napoleon,I thought he was going out with an incredibly good looking Dutch Girl at that time. Or had been, I think she had left him by then and he was living with his younger sister, Luda.
Once we had been there to his palatial home, with its horse paddocks, pool, spa and indoor sauna. It was beautiful and huge and we had felt like country bumpkins as he had taken us on the Grand Tour. I who always managed to put my foot in my mouth mentioned at dinner the last useless silly kitchen appliance I had just seen in the stores was the hot dog heater.
"Who on earth needs a hot dog heater? I had questioned.
"we have one" Nick replied, excitedly,
"We use it all the time"
Oops, ah well, that was me, I didn't get out much, with 4 kids under 10 at that time.
Anyway at the end of it all it was getting late so Bob went off to Lysterfield to fetch him. Bob said he arrived at Nicks house and searched high and low for him, finally finding him in the sauna,stoned as a maggot. So Bob fireman lifted him up and poured him in to the back seat. By the time they reached our place Nick was up and raring to go. Bob was a bit shocked at Nick's complete recovery as he knew he had been drinking bourbon and smoking joints. He stepped in to the Kitchen, shy and affable, polite, showing no signs of being stoned. Syl was charmed and started heating up food rapidly but Nick said,
"No food, coffee, much coffee"
and he pulled out of his pocket a roll of paper that looked like the caps out of a gun that were around when I was a girl. A skinny roll of paper with dots of gunpowder on that would wind through your toy gun and explode with a crack when the hammer came down. My brothers and I used to spread them out on the concrete and attack the dots with a real hammer and relish the rich sulpher smell.
We were intrigued, what were these dots??
"Something that will make you feel drunk:", Nick said
"And in the morning, no hangover",
he was so affable, grinning from ear to ear. He was our funny friend. chomping on his expensive cigar, his gold rings, bracelets and medallion glinting in the light of our humble little starter house in Keysborough. So we made coffee in small cups and Nick tore off 3 dots from the roll and placed the strips in our coffees. We all sat at the kitchen table companionably. God knows what Nick made of our old kitchen table that we had dragged home from the farm once. It was an old laminate table that had been used for cutting up pumpkins on up at the farm and looked like it. But Nick wasn't looking at the table, he was still standing, while we were seated, and he was looking down....At us.
At first I just thought he was acting "drunk", he seemed larger than life and started leaping (I.m not joking) all over the kitchen And us 3 observers, observed. I felt nailed to the chair and lethargic and watched as Nick leapt, spun, pirouetted,
"Hmm", I thought, "Seems normal."
Then he started raising his voice and getting angry.
"Why do people call me Nick The Wrecker ???", he questioned.
"i've never fucking wrecked anything"
We all nodded in assent. We were like subdued little lambs being led to the slaughter. He pointed at the clock on the wall behind us, we slowly swiveled our heads around. to look at the clock, like puppets on a string,
"Ah ha", he exclaimed and clapped his hands together in glee.
"Look at the hands going backwards"
And I swear to God the clocks hands were going backwards. Nick had lots more to say, that we should use our whole minds, not just ten percent of it. That humans do not expand their minds enough. We all nodded in unison. That he had never wrecked anything ad infinitum and then he knocked over a chair in his agitation and excitement and it looked like the chair was tumbling in slow motion. Over and over it tumbled, no noise just white white silence.
I glanced at Sylvia and thought,
"Funny, I never noticed how much like a pig Syl looks.".
Syl was fascinating and also repulsive. She had a snout with bristles coming out and her hands were pigs trotters, but blue. I couldn't understand why I had never noticed she was so ugly before. And at that time she was thinking the exact same about me. So while we two sows inspected each other, Nick left the room and called Bob in with him. I watched as Syl got up and went to the loo and I vaguely wondered if she would sit down to pee or stand seeing as she was a pig. I started to laugh at her blue hands.
Before she came back Bob reappeared and dragged me off to the hall.
"Come on, we're going to bed", he said.
I remonstrated with him.
"Our visitors have just arrived, we can't leave them here, by themselves , that would be rude"
He would hear no argument about it and I half walked, then ran to the bedroom, sensing his urgency. We rushed inside and locked the door, hiding together behind it.
"What do we do now?". I said, "We can't leave them out there on their own?"
Bob for the first time in his life seemed very hesitant, I might even say, nervous. Suddenly the air was split with really loud music, it was deafening and I hissed at Bob, that the kids would wake up.
"fuck, Janette, bugger the kids, he's going to wake up the whole neighbourhood.!!!!
We dithered behind the door for ages, not wanting to go out there, not knowing what we were facing. In the end the waking up of the kids won out and we ventured out. The music blaring. I could see music notes dancing in the air and lights. Bob yelled out to Nick.
"turn the music down". it was now reaching fever pitch.
Nick sauntered into the room and said what music????
and he pointed to our wall of eight track stereo and huge speakers and the music was not on. Nothing was on, no turntable, no amp, no lights glowed, nothing.
Bob and I looked at each other, dumb founded. We could still see the music in the air, the notes floating.
"Well music or not," Bob blustered, "You have to leave"
"Not till I have had a kiss from Janette", Nick said, and literally started chasing me around the house. All I could do was run, he had eaten something garlicky and it was like he was the garlic bulb crushed in front of me, so strong was the smell.
And weirdly he was starting to look like a little russian spy from the Mad Magazine, Spy Vs Spy. he had a long coat on, a mask and a pointy hat. I ran for my life and Bob was calling out
"Just kiss him and he'll leave"
but I wouldn't"
Bob ended up pushing him out the door and Nick pushed back and Bob ended up putting his foot on his head as Nick kneeled on the step and I grabbed the door and locked it. Nick disappeared as Syl reappeared from the bathroom, where she had spat out her 3 dots. We urged her to find him and she did and took him home.
We heaved a huge sigh of relief, went back to bed after carefully throwing the bolt on the bedroom door and then we really began to trip. We didn't even know what tripping was but we did it, we sure did it.
I went to Fiji, flying over the water to get there, not in a plane, just me, with arms outstretched, flying. I could feel the cool air, see the warm sand, smell the flowers, I dipped down into the sea and the water was like silk, so soft was it. I could see everything and then --bang-- i was back in the double bed in Keysborough. Bob was also tripping, he came back when I did. he had been to a beach, white sand, warm sun on his naked body. And he found a breast, the hugest breast he had ever seen. He encircled one with his stretched out arms, it was that big. And then he found another and thought delightedly,
"They're Janette's "
So every 30 seconds or so it seemed, we tripped away to different lands. One I went to I discovered the original language. Yes, discovered the original language of all mankind and it made such perfect sense. And another land had flat sharp people who were like cardboard cutouts, these paper people were all very elegant and looked like the belonged in the twenties, with cloche hats on the women who were holding long cigarette holders and dapper men with (wait for it--spats). I was charmed and that place was a wonderful one to me.
Suddenly I opened my eyes and said to Bob I could see Nick in the room. He was running around in his little spy outfit and I yelled at Bob to get him out, get him out. GET HIM OUT! Bob said he wasn't there. We had the most amazing lush, delightful, kiss and then we were having sex but it was like no sex we had ever had before. It was slow and erotic beyond belief, there were hands and tongues and lips and wetness and we slithered on and off each other like smooth snakes. It was un fucking believable. we couldn't stop. I would be on top and underneath and Bob was with me all the way. Finally after what seemed hours we fell asleep, exhausted.
But within minutes we were awake again, and now paranoid about where syl was and was she safe. we both got up and rang his number. Nick picked up straight away.
"Hi, you guys, ", he said.
I hung up.
"it's him". I said with dread.
Bob made me call back and we were both a bit wary of Nick then. Turned out him and Syl were having breakfast.
"I'll be seeing you, guys soon," He said.
I freaked out.
"hes coming here" I told Bob, we literally ran around freaking out, wringing our hands and not wanting to face this Man who had dosed us with something that was really strange. Nick had left his beautiful leather jacket on the chair. I peeked in the pockets and then started taking out the contents, more of the caps, weed in bags and lots and lots of money.
"He's a drug dealer". I said.
Bob was not convinced after all Nick was a big businessman, with a multi million dollar businesses, Eagle Spares in Dandenong and Nick the wreckers In Bennet Street. And there was that palatial home.
Nick duly arrived and I handed him his jacket.
"How could you do this to friends of yours". I asked him. I no longer saw him as "friend"
"listen lady, you had a good time", he replied,
He leaned over to me, all menace, now
"Now keep your mouth shut!".
There was no wanting to kiss me then. It turned out that why Bob had grabbed me and ran was that Nick had said to him
"what does it matter who sleeps with who? You could sleep with Syl and I could sleep with Janette"
Thats when Bob had grabbed me and made me flee. Bob said he would have been in on it, (liar!) but Syl was looking pig like...I was disgusted with the slimy Russian. Syl told me years later she had slept with Nick that first night but he was a "dud", but then Syl thought most men were "duds" and wanted me to write a book named 99% Of Men Are Bad In Bed and in the book would be a map, that showed easily where the anatomy of a woman was and how long to linger on each spot. Syl had the most incredible sexual experiences to relate. She was down to earth and a "wog", as she liked to call herself. She was eons older than I and I adored her.
She was probably the most liberated woman I knew in those days, she worked afternoon shift at WD and HO Wills, she smoked, she chewed and she was confident and friendly, She told me that the lady over the back of her was kissing some lover on her back step. Syl caught them red handed as she had stepped out into her backyard to sunbake. And had given a thumbs up to the woman. She was my Champion and to me at 26 a young Mother of four and her a Mother of three at 35, 3 boys, twins first and then another baby 18 months later, I used to mind her boys after school for about 12 months and her drop dead gorgeous husband came to collect them every night.
her and hubby, Con, were not long returned from Holland, where they had run a shelter for battered women. She said the women were a lazy bunch of "helpless" females. I wondered at that. Thinking I wouldn't mind a refuge myself. I was never ever to tell her or anyone of Bob's cruel and casual violence. It was our "Elephant in the room" and it was always like that with us. In fact many years later I told Syl and she screamed at me and did not believe me.
"I've never seen black eyes on you", never seen bruises" (Her son Ron was working with Bob at the time) and I was so livid I walked out of her unit and never went back. we were both rocking through our own divorces then and her pain was more palpable than mine. She had always wanted to get rid of Con, offering us her girlfriends, to pay to take him away, she was going to pay a prostitute in St Kilda to take him away. She wanted rid rid rid, and she got what she wanted. But deep down I think she regretted it. her son stopped working for Bob after a row and tried to sue him for unlawful dismissal, but he lost.
After Nick and Syl left I rang my brother in Box Hill, he was a hearing aid technologist in those days and liked a "Choof". I said 3 of the dots were still in the sink and he came over and took them away to be tested. Turns out the were LSD trips and we had each had three and Nick had had 9. Ian said it sounded like he was trying to control us. So his behaviour started to make sense. Ian laughed and asked if we had any more, he could probably sell them
Bob and I decided on the spur of the moment to go to the drags at Warrnambool for the night and we packed the kids in the Rover and threw a nappy bag in and we were off. Bob drove like a mad man, so fast and when we stopped for lunch, we were both agitated and impatient and a bit shitty, snapping in and out of flash backs. the kids were already resigned to their crazy parents.
Yvette had got up to go to the toilet the previous night and I saw her face as she rounded the corner and saw Syl and Bob and I sitting at the table, gazing reverently at Nick the Wrecker as he shimmied all over our kitchen. I remember looking at her and she was inching her way past us and trying not to goggle at us. Yvette was 8.
God knows what we were doing at the drags at Warrnambool. we had met up with one of Bob's workers there, who was car mad. But we were starting to come down then and bad painful empty feelings flooded our bodies and we were so tired. We headed off with the girls to book in to a Motel for the night and there was not one in Warrnambool with a vacancy and by the time we got home we just collapsed. "Coming down " was just horrible and I can understand why people don't want to "come down" on drugs. It is the worst bottoming out feeling you can imagine and that is the moment when you want more.
The next day we slept late, exhausted, bottoming out. The girls burst in to the room and said the Joe next door had found us a cockatoo. Bob had wanted one for ages. A girl, of course. So we were ecstatic. As we dressed and made ourselves ready in the bedroom. Bob turned to me and said, apropos of nothing.
"There is only one way I would have that stuff again. We need to go to a Motel for the weekend, without the girls, we'll take some and stay in bed all weekend, just keep having sex, I was flattered but it was not going to happen, Bob was sexually prudish, pushing me away if I tried to kiss him, hated hugs and was always tired from working. Also he could go without sex for 5 months at a time, not good for me"
Bob didn't bring Nick again. Years later Syl bought me the Herald Sun and pointed to the front page article. A man had been arrested in Bangkok for heroin importation. he had been caught with a 2 kilo plastic bag of it, the bag sitting at his feet in a cafe in Bangkok. The man was going to be machine gunned to death if found guilty. I glanced at the article and handed it back to Syl,
"So????"
"It's Nick, the Wrecker" she said
Love Janette
