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Of Hate and Loss

Writer's picture: Kim M HorwoodKim M Horwood

Against a sharp blue sky, arms are outstretched with a placard painted in red, END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN. Amongst them are sisters, aunts, friends, and mothers, whose lives have been broken, stolen and lost. Shoulder to shoulder they chant, ‘no more violence, no more hate’.

We have seen the words, we have felt their fight; the media have reported our losses. For the one-in-four who experience violence, we pledge to rescue and support, and for the one we lose every week, we grieve.

As they march along a city street, placards become the battle shields of those who lead the war. BREAK THE SILENCE, BREAK THE GLASS, is held firm by weathered hands; ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, is painted black on white canvas. But not every case is as black and white as painted words.

While our focus is on solutions to end the violence against women and to address the inequality, there are fathers, parents and grandparents feeling the sting of cold injustice who only seek equality and peaceful resolution.  With placards raised against the sunshine, there are shadows, because even when we shine a light, we cannot stop the dark.

The story below is not mine - it belongs to someone else. I wrote it in honour of the 54 sunflowers we have lost to domestic violence this year.

Coercive Control Beyond the Grave

“I was this close Mum, this close.” She measured the distance between her finger and thumb.

Anyone else might think she was talking about having her lotto numbers drop or making the shortlist for that job.

But she wasn’t talking about the lotto or making a shortlist. She was talking about how close she had come to freedom, to escaping the suffocating control of a narcissist.

He had been interesting at first. Not love-of-her-life interesting, but small-town-both-single interesting.

She always believed the love of her life was out there and he would find her. She was not sure what happened; maybe she missed him in a sliding doors moment. She dreamed they’d meet at the local supermarket. She’d be buying sunflowers, just because they made her smile, and he’d been frowning at the selection of flowers in buckets near the entrance.  She imagined he would randomly ask her if sunflowers lasted long in water because he was visiting an elderly aunt in the next town, and although she may not last long, he wanted the flowers to last longer. She imagined he’d notice the way her smile lit up her face or how she was kind but funny. Maybe on the day they were supposed to meet, she was already in the cereal aisle when he reached the sunflowers, and they had totally missed each other. If she closed her eyes she could imagine the scent of his aftershave or the smell of soap on his skin. She would have preferred a man who smelled of soap. Instead, she was pursued by a man who smelled of hangover and ashtray. Ashtray dogged her like a greyhound trails a rabbit.

Ashtray was interesting at first. He was even likeable. She had desperately wanted him to be the love of her life, with every beat of her heart, every cell in her body. Perhaps it was her want that took her so long to realise he was never going to be that love. He would never be the man who would laugh with her, make her cups of tea, or share her dreams. He was never going to love her above all else because he would never love anyone more than he loved himself.

Ashtray could not understand why she resisted him. Being with him was surely better than being a single woman and alone. His family had lived in their town for generations; he had status and standing. He was a catch. She just needed to be swayed, worn down, claimed by him, so he took her to the pub for dinner, even pulled her chair out to show her how much of a gentleman he was.

She’d had more drinks than usual, but he kept buying them. When he drove in the direction of his house instead of hers that night, she was feeling extra sleepy and wanted to go home. He promised he’d look after her and with one hand on the steering wheel, he started massaging her neck. The knot that pinched each morning was dissolving under the pressure of his fingers. Her brain was rejecting the suggestion she stay but her body surrendered.

When he brought her a cup of tea in the morning, she considered him briefly but then insisted she should go home. Her head felt heavy and hot tea would make her feel better, until she took a mouthful.

‘I usually have sugar in my tea,’ she tried to say politely.

‘Nah, don’t need sugar,’ he smiled, ‘How you gunna keep that hot bod if you have sugar?’

Even when a taxi arrived to rescue her from his house that morning, she knew deep down that she was already trapped.

He was good at convincing her that she should feel flattered by his attention. Ashtray continued to turn up unannounced, always insisting. If he were drunk, he’d cry at her door. She’d let him in, just so the neighbours didn’t complain. For a moment, he filled a need in her that she kept buried deep inside.

Sometimes she’d come home to find him in her townhouse. He’d threatened to do himself in if she made him leave.

Town locals knew the story of the uncle he’d found hanging in the tractor shed after the split from his wife. Ashtray’s family harassed the widow after that, blaming her for his death. They messaged her at all hours, made threats over the phone, and even left a goats head on her doorstep. There was no proof that it was them, but the whole town knew that it was.

She was convinced if she made him leave, he would do it. He’d do himself in, and his family would blame her. It was in his genetic makeup to manipulate and use guilt as a weapon. In his mind, the men in his family knew what they wanted, and they went after it, because that’s what real men did. 

She never intended to be part of his story. She would have preferred to be written out, but he dragged her from one chapter to the next. Page after page, day after day, her real self faded to the background and she became a shadow of who she used to be.

He needed to control how people saw them, convince everybody that they were a couple. It didn’t matter if she didn’t want to go somewhere or do something with him. It was easier to sit in a corner at a pub or a party, than be sandblasted by his words.

She had worked long enough to have savings. It didn’t matter if she didn’t want to give him her money, he found a way to coerce her without ever having to touch her. She was conscientious, responsible, dependable. He was forceful, intimidating, persuasive.

He never paid for a thing. Not rent, or electricity, or internet. His money was spent on bets, smokes, and booze and then he’d ask her for loans. $100 here, $300 there.

She arrived home one day and suddenly noticed his clothes in her wardrobe and she’d realised he had infiltrated her whole life. She glanced across the hall at her spare room and an idea came to her. She had to move fast, moving her things from the main bedroom into the spare room. She moved as much as she could without it looking too obvious, hoping he wouldn’t notice and start in on her. How would she keep him out?

She grabbed her keys and raced out the front door.

Parked behind the hardware in case he was in town, she was paying for a door bolt when she heard a voice at her shoulder.

‘Doin’ some work at home are ya?’

Ashtray’s brother was standing in front of her as she turned to leave.

‘Yes, I am,’ she smiled politely, then waved as she left the store.

The sun had already gone and her spare room door was already bolted by the time she heard his footsteps coming up the gravel path, past the other townhouses.

While she was safely bolted behind her door, it became usual for him to drunk-cry, yell and bang his head on the wall, begging her to come out. She would call her Mum and ask her to stay on the phone, in case something happened. In case, he decided to force her bedroom door. He never did. He was more cunning with his control.

Being home alone was her sanctuary. He was the only part of her life that was not in order. She never thought he would be there long, but years went by without her Property Manager even knowing. The neighbours knew – they’d hear his rants; they’d bear the brunt of his abuse and they’d see her cry when she pulled into her driveway and discover he was there. He took her bed, her peace, her freedom.

Her misery was kept private from her work friends, who never knew he existed. Only her parents would know the truth but she begged them not to do anything to upset him. It was no use, she’d say.

She would just keep saving her money, keep smiling, keep being dependable. Nobody would know.

Saving a deposit for her own home became her escape plan. Ashtray would never know how much she had because they had no shared accounts, no shared bills, she paid for everything. He always spent more money than he had and sponged off her like a giant cash parasite.

His family had a reputation with connections all over town, even with the local council. If she was afraid of him, she was even more afraid of them.

She worked hard and was getting close to having her house deposit. She’d started applying for jobs up north, as far away from him as possible.

She’d call her Mum on her way to work and talk about the latest job advertised. She had sent applications and crossed all her fingers and toes. She was excited about her plans, and even though her parents had moved away, she’d call every day to talk about her day, her dreams, her new life. She’d pray for the luxury of coming home to an empty house, being able to cook her own dinner in peace before she would bolt herself behind her bedroom door.  

If he was there when she pulled into the driveway, her insides crumpled like a page from a book.

But then, she got sick. Really sick. Even when she wasn’t there, Ashtray hardly noticed.

It took her a week to decide that she would go ahead with chemotherapy, but it was already too late. The cancer was aggressive.

‘I was this close Mum.’

By the time she was measuring how close she had come with her finger and thumb, she was in a hospital bed, dying.

Those weeks following her diagnosis, were the only time Ashtray left her in peace. He did not visit her in hospital. She was relieved but not surprised. In her dying week, he called to borrow money. That was when she knew she had to write her Will, to ensure her entire estate would go to her parents.

With her mother by her side, her heart stopped in the early hours of a foggy Sunday morning. She was finally free to take her dreams north to the sun.

While her family cleaned up her townhouse, his family paid a visit.

‘Did you know he gave her a ring?’ his aunt sniffed, ‘I’ve come to get it.’

‘She had no ring – they weren’t even together,’ her mother said.

‘Maybe you buried her with it,’ his aunt grinned, ‘Yeah, well, if my nephew doesn’t get the money for the ring, you better get a lawyer.’

‘They weren’t together, there was no ring.’

‘Whatever you reckon,’ the aunt grinned again, ‘By the way, condolences.’

Ashtray made a claim on her superannuation, declaring he was her defacto partner. His claim was rejected as there was no evidence of joint accounts or a shared life. His clothes hung in her wardrobe but he was not on the lease of her townhouse; they merely cohabited a living space.

He was not giving up his control. He engaged a lawyer to contest the Will she’d made on her death bed. He told his family he’d given her a family heirloom that belonged to his great grandmother. He would never reveal that he’d hocked it months before.

His family drew a longbow with character references from high-profile townsfolk who knew little of his character. He spruced up his appearance and got a haircut, before he spruiked at the pub, that he was about to come into money. He was going to get what was stolen from him, he was going to fight, and he was going to beat them.

Ashtray backed himself like one of those horses he backed at Flemington. Even though the stakes were high, and this was a game of margins, he was a sure bet.

Ashtray had no capacity to see he was contesting grieving parents – parents who had created the beautiful soul that she was; they had fed, clothed and loved her into being, they had consoled and rescued, they had nurtured and cherished, and they had held her while she slipped away.

Her parents’ legal fees would come from her estate. Lawyers, Barristers, Mediation, all initiated by Ashtray, would come from the money she’d saved to escape him. Even the sunflowers her family planted in memory of her, would hang their heads.

He would never give up control. Her parents finally agreed to a settlement, so their daughter could rest in peace.

She had once dreamed of being loved enough that she could do anything. She had wanted a life partner who would inspire her, someone who would be her champion. Instead, she lived with emotional manipulation and abuse. She had loving parents, a great job, a savings plan, but she masked so much behind a fierce determination to keep her personal life private. She would never speak of him or his hold over her. In her living years, she hid heartache behind her smile but never lost hope that she could be free. Even in her death, he continued to control her.

“I was this close Mum, this close.”

Now she was free to fly north with the birds, to feel the wind in her sunflower face, and to shine with the stars.

The Sunflower Shadow (photo above by Joannis Duran)

"Good-bye my SUN

I will sleep until you return

every morning during the sunrise"

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