Sex Crimes (24 page)

‘I can forgive you, if you forgive me,’ I begged, desperate. ‘It will take time and we’ll need some counselling…like a lot more counselling….but I love you and I …. Well….we need to think of the kids.’

He nodded thoughtfully.

‘Have you ever had contact with him again?’ he asked me. ‘Have you …has there been anyone else, because if you tell me now…?’

I interrupted him by putting my finger over his lips, silencing him.

‘No-one else, there will never be anyone else,’ I whispered. ‘And you…all those years on the road, all the groupies, the girls…’

‘Never before that one stupid night,’ he said, his eyes burning into mine, red and puffed with raw pain.

Chris and I made love like we never had that night and reconnected on some primal level. It was, I guess, the archetypal break-up, make-up thing. It was a page-turner and took us into a whole new chapter of our lives.

‘So do you think she deliberately targeted you?’ I asked, forcing the question to the surface.

‘Yes, you know,’ he nodded in the moonlight, ‘I think she did. I think she set her sights on taking me down and I think she used that blonde and her drugs and I know that’s no excuse but when you don’t see it coming…..they filmed it and it was all designed to destroy us, like you had destroyed her parents.’

I was silent. In all my selfish guilt and anguish, I’d never given a thought to his family or to his wife. I was never found out but he was either caught or confessed and his family had lived with that secret shame and hurt for all these years.

‘Well, she certainly got us to notice,’ I said. ‘I feel a little bit sorry for her, when you put it like that.’

I felt like a cigarette. I’ve never smoked but I thought I might like to try just one. Just in that moment. I pushed the stupid thought away.

‘She’s got major problems,’ Chris said and then turned up on one arm and looked across at me in the mellow darkness. ‘But she went about fixing them the wrong way. I can’t drop the charges, it’s out of my hands and only the police can do that and they won’t now, not at this stage.’

He brushed my hair out my eyes and sighed, a sad, defeated sigh.

‘Did you love him? Did he love you?’

‘No,’ I answered.

That was the truth for me. But at the time, back then, I sensed that Tom had fallen deeply for me. That was the real reason I dropped out of uni and got away. Not because of Olive.

‘Where do we go from here?’ Chris asked, sounding like the school-boy I’d fallen in love with. So fragile.

‘We take her on. Together. As a team,’ I replied. ‘I don’t want to destroy her. I just want the world to see that she was wrong to do what she did. She could have killed you and she used you, she used you to get to me. To hurt me. It worked. Oh, God it worked.’

We lay awake, listening to the sound of each other’s breath, buried beneath an avalanche of emotions until the baby began to wail for attention. When this goes public, and it will, it will probably hurt my reputation as a young adult writer, I thought, sadly. But Chris had taken a big hit and what was good for the gander, was, as they’ve been saying a lot lately, is good for the goose.

‘We’ll get through this,’ I whispered to Chris. ‘Listen to that sound. Our baby. Our beautiful little man. If we can do that together, we can do anything!’

To be honest, I knew it would never be the same. It was like a bucket of water that someone had dropped two spoonfuls of ink into. It was tainted and it would be impossible for our sins not to hover above us as anti-halos, every day. We would be reminded every day of our mistakes. Our love for one another would be the whisper and the warning that danger was only a slip away. I believed in my heart that neither of us could or would ever stray again. And that’s all we had left. At least, as sharers of our own pain, we would guard each other’s shadows. Always checking. Watching. Ever vigilant. That beautiful insouciance that we had bathed in was gone and would be replaced by an invisible fog of wariness.   

7.

CHRIS BERGIN

After the assault complaint against Olive was dropped, we decided to go ahead with our trip to Byron Bay. The cops had investigated the complaint  by the Mersky’s and decided there was provocation. They had a talk to Olive about how to try and deal with bullies and had some stern words for that Taylor girl who had really started the whole thing. Well, the whole thing wouldn’t have been an issue at all if I hadn’t had that idiotic party in my hotel room,
that night.
But that night might never have occurred if it hadn’t been for Meg’s thing with that goddamn Professor. He was only a lecturer back in the day but not five minutes goes by when I don’t get a stab of pain imagining them together.

Jules and Clay Farrelly came up to house-sit and look after our dog, Ollie.

Meg and I brought it up, her old fling with her teacher, with our marriage counsellor, who was clearly surprised by the dramatic revelation. I think we actually stumped her and she couldn’t think of much to say, or much advice to give us. The press had not been present at the hearing and so the connection between Meg and the girl’s father had not yet leaked. But it would. The girl or her friend. Both were courting the press, albeit covertly.

Had we been any other couple, I don’t think our relationship could have weathered this much storm. Even the counsellor said she could feel the current running between us and said she didn’t see that sort of thing very often. Not that potent.

And I do love Meg. I never stopped. That night it was like an
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
movie. I don’t know what demonic force took over my brain and my body, but I swear to God, I would never, ever make choices like that in my right mind. Every time I say that out loud, I sound lame. I know. Like I’m trying to take no responsibility at all. But there had to be something else going on. I’d done some cocaine and knocked back plenty of beers and bubbles over the years and I don’t know if it was the sneaky blue pill that caused the bad or bizarre reaction. I don’t know. I’d pissed myself when I woke up and I was so ashamed and now, after watching that sick film the girls’ took that I wonder if it wasn’t them doing that to me. There was only a minute or two of footage…what else did they do to me and was there any more footage that might surface? I lost sleep over thoughts like that. Every night.

You know what? I was honest with Meg in that last counselling session before our little family get-away. I told her I’d really missed her while I was on tour. There are girls, women everywhere, always fawning over us. Craig and Linus, they take full advantage of it while Clay and I are the good family men of the band. We see the other guys and the road-crew, totally losing their inhibitions on tour. The old ‘what happens on tour, stays on tour’ is the rule and I respect that to a degree.  Clay used to be a player. Five different girls in one night was his personal record. Me? Up until that night, I swear to God, there had only been Meg. That’s it. Crazy. I’m a rock star, man.  It was just that I wrapped friendship, love and sex all into one and that one was her.

The other guys had girlfriends for love, groupies for sex and the band for mates.  I just didn’t choose to compartmentalise my life that way. My family is my life. Meg is my rock. I couldn’t hurt her and when a hot chick ever started getting heavy, I imagined, just imagined Meg’s face and her kisses, her laughter… and you know, truthfully, it’s never been a problem. Once you make a decision, there aren’t any questions any more. The door is locked and you throw away the key. Happily.

On that last tour, I don’t know if it was because I’m getting older or going through a mid-life life crisis early but I was bored by the music, the cities that were no longer new because I’d been there so many times before, the buses and the planes. I’ve been around the world four times in my life and people are the same everywhere, fans are the same and the beer and drugs are the same.

I didn’t party on the tour, hardly at all. Like, I was a hermit. I was over the whole thing. Hanging in my room, being a loner. And I did pass the time by hitting the porn a bit. I’ve never done that before. Not really. Didn’t need to. What Meg and I have got beats two dimensional fake stuff any day. When I tell the guys that, they laugh at me. But they know me and they know that I wouldn’t risk what I’ve got because it’s so good.

But you spend every night on your own for a few months and even the porn starts to get stale and you go for more, harder, dirtier sort of stuff just for a kick. Starts off as curiosity and starts taking you weird places. I put what happened
that night
a little bit down to that because to be honest, the bits I recall, which is not a lot, seemed like a tacky porno film. It was like I was dreaming and I’d ended up in one of my own tour fantasies. I didn’t even feel like I was real but that I was a two dimensional character in a film. Not me. Some guy I was watching. Like an out-of-body experience. The porn I’d been accessing seemed to seep into my life, slipping through a crack between fantasy and reality. I think the drug combo created that crack.

I know it’s a lame excuse, but it’s just something I wanted to share and I think Meg, while not happy about it, appreciated my honesty.

We headed up the coast in the Range Rover at the beginning of November. It had been such a messed up year, Meg and I decided that we’d not worry about the end of year exams for Olive. She’d been through enough because of us. She was a top student and wanted to follow in her mum’s footsteps as a writer. Her marks had been poor and as a team we decided to send her to a new school, a fresh start, where she could repeat year eight.

There was no-where on the planet that we could move to where we’d be anonymous or that Olive could escape the taunts and vibes from ratbag school mates. We were going to have to arm her with the skills to fight those proverbial slings and arrows and be there for the tears and her anger, because we did anticipate some anger, as she got older and began looking at the situation we had inadvertently put her in, with wiser eyes. I hoped she wouldn’t judge us as harshly as we’d judged ourselves and each other. And I didn’t want her to end up like that freaky girl that had tipped my life upside down, presumably through her own warped reaction to her father’s affair.

The Pacific Highway hadn’t got too congested and chock-a-block with Christmas tourists yet. Our plan had been to beat the December crush. The trial wasn’t due to start until February at the earliest and we so needed to get away as a family unit to bond and rebuild.

We had good weather all the way and arrived late at night at the villa we’d rented down by Watego’s Beach, a great little spot not too far from the famous Byron Lighthouse.

Meg wanted to catch up with her sister, Sandy, who lived in the hills behind the coastal town with her daughter, Holly, who was a few years older than Olive but they always got on. Cousins who were a bit like sisters.

The villa was dark and we let ourselves in with the key that the real estate had couriered to us. We usually stayed up the other end of Byron so this was a change. We were deliberately doing new things. Making a fresh start. Creating new traditions, as the counsellor suggested.

It was great. Spacious and luxurious and just a short walk to the beach. Olive woke from her hypnotic car daze to sprint around checking out the rooms, deciding on hers. It was a four bedroom place. Too big for us really, but I’d wanted to splash out and find something really nice for the girls. It was everything the brochure said it would be. Big television, comfy beds. Everything looked five star. I was impressed.

The place had a pool with a Fijian Bure to relax and barbeque under.  And a spa. 

Although we were excited, we were also exhausted and my back hurt from the ten hour drive.

The next morning the weather smiled on us and I took a surfboard from the garage. The rental on the house included a jet ski, trailer and three long boards. I hadn’t surfed for a couple of years and missed it.

I went upstairs and looked down at Meg. She slept with our little bloke nestled in the crook of her arm. He kind of sucked his little lips while he slept as if he was dreaming of drinking at the mummy milk fountain. I leaned over and kissed her peachy forehead and touched Harry gently on his fluffy head. She opened her sleepy eyes.

‘Going for a surf.’ I smiled.

She nodded and closed her eyes again with a smile on her pale pink lips.

As I was bounding down the wide staircase, I heard a voice behind me. Olive.

‘Can I come too?’ You can show me how to surf,’ she smiled.

‘Sure,’ I laughed back. ‘Grab the smallest of the two boards in the garage and follow me.

She’d already dressed in a pair of floral boardies and a pink rashie. Obviously keen to hit the beach. Like father. Like daughter.

We walked barefoot over the sharp bitumen of the road down a hill and around to the spectacular surf. Wow. Man. You go to the ocean and its awesome power just puts everything in perspective. No crap that life throws at you can put a dent on nature. It stays the same while we ramble around and screw up our lives and make stupid choices, good choices, eat, drink and be merry. The tide just keeps going in and out. The waves keep on smashing on the sand. Over and over. Predictable. Powerful. And completely disinterested in our human lives. It won’t move out of the way for us and for all its beauty, it takes life and hosts it without noticing. It just is.

It’s humbling. For the last how-ever many months, my family and my tragedy, my mistake,
that night,
and if I’m honest
me
, little old me, has consumed my world, spinning out of control all about something that seems so irrelevant when I look out on the splendour of the ocean. In a court-room, in a jail cell, lying in a hotel bed soaked with piss, it all looks like a snapshot from hell. That’s the human world for you. But on that beach, that morning, with my daughter by my side, the salty early morning breeze on my face, I had something akin to a religious experience. I felt one with something bigger than me and for an atheist, a confirmed atheist, it was a profoundly powerful sensation.