Sue

Sue carried her hardships around like a prize medal to be worn on her dress. Sue recounted her bouts with the dark side, wearing a smile on her face. Sue spoke of getting shock therapy, in an airy voice that one would discuss gardening. Sue spoke about suicide, with a cigarette in hand and a glass of scotch in the other.

She curled her dyed auburn hair on top of her head, and painted her lips red. Holding her eyeliner with the skill she held a paintbrush, she applied the cat eyes that made her feel young again. Sue cooked breakfast for her family and whistled a Beatles song to her self, then dressed her kids for school and packed their lunches. She did not hug or kiss them goodbye when they left. Her husband leant over the kitchen bench to peck her on the lips; she extended her cheek with a fake smile and a cold silence.

Sue tidied the house. She straightened pillows on the couch. She organized her art supplies, made the children’s beds, and cleaned out the fridge. Sitting on the patio, she downed a glass of wine, and then finished the bottle. Afterwards, she had her afternoon nap, as she did every day. When she woke up her kids were back, her husband was preparing a glass of gin. Sue sat in front of the TV without watching.

Sue spent most of her days without talking to anyone but her family. Even then, conversation was sparse. Her children didn’t talk to her the way they spoke to their father; with him they would discuss their dreams, their days at school, their friends and their playground enemies. With her they gave curt one-word answers. They sat with their backs a little straighter when she walked into the room.

Sue had suffered Tuberculosis five or so years before her eldest child was born. The illness isolated her, she lost contact with all her friends, and she knew only the familiar faces of the nurses in the hospital. She didn’t speak to the other patients. Her family did not visit. Her favorite brother, Frank, was at war in Tobruk. He wrote her letters sometimes. When she was in hospital, she heard news of his death via letter from her other brother John. In a fit of manic grief, she ran down the corridors of the hospitals crying and screaming, yelling his name. The nurses had to hold her down.

She went and lived alone by the seaside. She enjoyed the solitude, the peace and quiet. Sue had had half a lung removed, and was told the TB might return. She was advised not to kiss or hug her friends and relatives, to avoid the spreading of germs – an aversion she carried through motherhood. She kept herself at arms length from the few visitors she had.

She moved back to Melbourne, living in a one bedroom flat in St Kilda. She began socializing again, making friends with the housewives of the men returned from war. Sue met Tim at a party; he was fourteen years her senior and had spent his time at war in Tobruk. He had lost half his thumb. He had lost his hearing in one ear. He had lost faith in the goodness of people; he had lost his faith in God. So had Sue, they bonded over atheism. They bonded over alcoholism. She fell pregnant and they married, they bought a house together, and their daughter was born.

Like trees that grow to and from one another, this family grew together then fell apart. A man returned from War has a certain aura that follows him. Something sad and quiet, that sits by his side at dinner parties, at work, on trains, in bed. Something that says ‘Yes, I’ve killed men’, and ‘Yes, I wish I could forget their faces’. Posttraumatic stress disorder wasn’t recognized as mental illness for another 20 years. Only those willing to admit to their suffering, to seek help, to reach out from their haunted sleep and identify the trauma they were dealing with, were able to have peace. There weren’t many who did so. Many men, like Tim, turned to the bottle as therapy. If he drank himself to sleep, he wouldn’t have nightmares. This was how he got through the nights, and there was no shame in it. His friends from Tobruk did the same, his neighbors did the same, and his children’s friends’ fathers did the same. The wives, when they met for cocktails on a Saturday afternoon, did not discuss it.

The good woman who cares for her War veteran husband puts herself second. She prepares his meals, she washes his clothes, and she holds him at night when he hears the sounds of his fellow men’s screams. Sue wanted to be that woman. She tried very hard.  It was the Australian version of the ‘American Dream.’  Instead she found herself trapped in a suburban nightmare.

Sue’s first attempt at suicide was when her children were of ages six and seven.

It was a Sunday, and she gave her children each a glass of milk. Both contained a sleeping tablet. Sue wanted some peace and quiet, for the children to have a nice long rest. After she put them to bed, the house was her own to walk about; she ran her fingers over the photo frames that lines the mantelpiece, she watched the chiffon curtain playfully shift as the wind teased it from an open window. She lit a cigarette. Then she downed the remainder of pills in the bottle she was holding, washing them down with scotch, and lay down on the couch.

Tim later found her and called and ambulance. He was in no state to drive her to the hospital, having been at the pub after a hard days work. She had her stomach pumped and suffered no series damage from her brush with death. The children were fine.

She recalled these events as if she were reading me a children’s story. Her voice was soft and light as a feather. Her lips curled in a smile, but her eyes remained cold. She told me she didn’t fear death, that western culture isolated death from life – but it was as much as part of life as birth. As love. After she passed away, I found a small watercolour landscape of a beach on her bedside table. I’d recognise her fine and skilled brush strokes anywhere. On the back, in curled and deliberate handwriting, she had scrawled a stanza of a Dylan Thomas poem.

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.