‘Annika, if you employ a nanny you have to pay them.’
‘Listen here, Mum, I didn’t employ you, you offered because you have no job and no family other than me here. Poppy is your grandchild, not some annoying chore. How often have I helped you financially with the boys? Yet I have never once kept a tally or cared if I ever saw that money ever again.’
I was so mad. Mum’s brain functioned in a strange way and her memory had holes so large you could drive a bus through them. I wanted to slap her, swear at her, I wanted to bring up the past. But I couldn’t bring myself to be disrespectful and rude, so I suggested we part ways.
Mum left that afternoon, and I felt a wave of relief wash over me. I later found out that she had moved to Sydney to be near her parents.
Mum was not the only person in my family that was causing me heartache. I had heard on the grapevine that Ben’s condition had worsened. He had returned from Hong Kong and his family-funded world tour to rid himself of his inner turmoil. The trip had not brought about the inner peace that his family were hoping for. In fact, his illness had escalated. Without medical intervention and an open ended MasterCard used for cash advances, Ben was now a stranger to himself. He committed crimes under strict instruction from his inner voices. It was heartbreaking; he was unrecognisable.
The crimes he committed were personal and horrendous, but mostly homicidal.
Over the next few years he alternated between hospitals, prisons and private clinics. Some treatments worked but schizophrenics that self-medicate with cannabis deteriorate quickly.
I visited him regularly while he was in government facilities, but he was a shadow of the Ben I had known. Very occasionally there were sparks of the old Ben, but they were few and far between. He now spoke to kookaburras and Jesus, and worse still they spoke back.
I was now torn between two loves, Ben and Poppy. I felt an obligation to stand by him, albeit on the basis of friendship, at least while he sought rehabilitation. But my maternal nature warned me to safeguard Poppy from Ben’s volatile moods.
I decided to do both, keep Poppy far, far away from him, but support him from a distance. Poppy would just have to accept that her father as I knew him was gone.
25
Back to the Old Trade
The early nineties were a bad time for most Queenslanders. Cutbacks were seen everywhere; even in the music industry expense accounts were seriously curtailed. Entertainment accounts and staff were no longer deemed a necessity. I lost my job and once again I found myself in survival mode.
It didn’t take long for something else to go wrong. I received a bill from Diners Club to the tune of $8000. Positive it was an error, I contacted them, but it was no error. Someone had been billing airline trips to my account. By phoning up and quoting my Qantas Frequent Flyer number over the phone, they were able to obtain tickets at the counter without showing any ID. It had to be someone I knew who had access to my details, and there were only a few possibilities—and I didn’t want to drag any of them through the courts.
I was able to prove beyond a doubt that I had not flown with Qantas on any of their flights—on a number of occasions I was in a different state when I was supposedly in mid-air. But they didn’t care, I was responsible unless I wanted to press fraud charges. I had to decide whether to fight the bill or simply pay the damn thing. I reluctantly decided on the latter. But it was near impossible seeing I was now jobless, uneducated and on a single mother’s benefit. With the last of the little I had left, I bought a car and rented a unit in a Gold Coast suburb.
I arranged to have a removalist take my furniture out of storage in Sydney and bring it to my new unit. On the day I moved in, I waited patiently for my furniture to arrive, but by four o’clock I was still sitting in an empty apartment. I called the company to have them inform me that they had gone to the storage facility and discovered a break in. My furniture, saucepans, dishes, blankets and beds—my entire life—was gone.
Thanks to St Vincent de Paul and the kindness of a few friends, we were donated a blow-up mattress, two sheets, one pot, an old fridge, two plates and bowls, some cutlery and a box of groceries that would last two weeks as long as I didn’t eat. I put the mattress in front of the gas heater that came with the house and bundled us in clothes just to keep warm. We had no pillows or towels.