We rented individual rooms from the young owner, who was buying the house off his parents and lived in a granny flat out the back. It was a three-bedroom house with another little granny flat area downstairs and a little bricked-up area that was a bit cheaper but brought to mind a prison cell rather than somewhere to put down roots. Relatively quiet despite being just off the South-East Freeway, it still brings back great memories like jumping from the balcony into the pool while hurling insults at siblings; and not-so-great memories like progress on a uni assignment due that afternoon being slowed by the landlord and his mates smoking hash in the kitchen little more than two metres away.
There's also some frankly terrible memories, most of which revolved around a bloke called Newton. He rented out one of the rooms and pretty much immediately brought problems, not least because of some very severe alcohol issues. Newton would get paid on a Thursday, leave the rent on the table Thursday afternoon then be broke Friday morning after drinking his bodyweight in whatever was going.
When he first moved in Newton had a pregnant girlfriend Carly. When he was sober Newton would confide that he wanted to be a good father; when he was drunk he was completely uncontrollable. One night there were some loud thumps before Carly came screaming and crying out of his room.
Newton had thumped her.
Carly left in a taxi. It wasn't the first time he had hit her.
They broke up soon afterwards.
FAST-FORWARD a few years and I'd watched someone close to me fall deeper and deeper into despair. She felt that her then-partner was becoming more and more controlling; the first time I travelled overseas I heard that he'd thumped one of her sons. Not a great feat given he was 6 feet tall versus a jockey-sized 16 year-old.
Wasn't the first time he'd thumped someone either. After she finally left him he would leave truly vulgar messages on her phone, stand by her work and shout out obscenities, tell their two kids lies about why their mother had left. Out of this woman's six children, that man's actions have effectively poisoned the relationship between her and four of them that a regular mother/child relationship is virtually impossible. For years afterwards my greatest fear was that I would get a call from the police saying this man had been around and that she was now in hospital.
Or dead.
COUPLE of years later and I'm working the night shift at an inner-city backpackers. Two men and a woman walk past. I recognise them from earlier so don't check keys. About an hour later one man walks out in a rush, followed closely by a livid other male.
The woman comes up to me and asks where they've gone, explaining that the first man to leave was someone they'd been drinking with that once everyone went to bed decided to try hop in with her, despite the second male being her boyfriend. The boyfriend comes back in and they move around the corner to where the vending machine is. Soon afterwards I hear what could either be a soft drink can being opened or a slap. I'm not sure which so I call the bouncers from the bar downstairs, who check the footage and find that she had in fact been assaulted. The boyfriend is kicked out; the girlfriend stays but I later hear joins him again the next morning.
On another night a man checks out at 1am. Weird, but ok. He's in a double room but only wants his $20 key deposit back. A girl walks down soon afterwards and asks about him. Turns out he's just thumped her, then destroyed her phone so she couldn't call anyone at home. I get the bouncers to come up and keep an eye on her. We find a phone in lost property that accepts foreign sim cards so she can call home.
This lady swears to never speak to him again.
At the start of 2015 Rosie Batty was named Australian of the Year. This has shone a spotlight on domestic violence in Australia as Rosie had come to prominence in the most shocking way possible after her ex-partner murdered their son after cricket training in February 2014. Since then Rosie has become a strong advocate for victims of domestic violence - and victims they are. I've heard people try and make excuses for domestic violence. "She was asking for it." "She provoked him." "She shouldn't have done that."
How are these ever excuses? Singer-songwriter Paul Kelly wrote about domestic violence in his song "Sweet Guy" (the chorus of which is the title to this post, visit here for a version sung by Vika Bull). How could lyrics like
"I must be mad, I must be crazy,
Everyone tells me so
Everyday I see it coming,
Now I'm facing the wall, waiting for the blow"
not have people up in arms?I'm typing this as I watch an ABC documentary called "Hitting Home", watching victims being interviewed by police & counsellors soon after being beaten. How can someone rationalise this behaviour? Why should people live in fear of physical harm or death? How do we deal with this? What do you do if you hear of domestic violence? Right now there's a story about a woman, Kate Malonyay who was verbally abused by her partner before leaving him. This apparently put him so far over the edge that he killed her. It's that moving - and that familiar - that I've had to step away from the computer for a few minutes.
I don't have the answers. The conversation has started though. It's a start, but not a finish. The finish line is a long way away, something that sprung to mind in July 2015 when doing laundry at the Birdsville Caravan Park. Two middle-aged women were chatting to each other while I washed three days worth of desert grime when suddenly one of them made a comment about being hit. One of them turned to me and apologised, commenting that I probably didn't want to hear about domestic violence.
"He loves you to death doesn't he," the other one commented.
How is this a thing, and why do we accept it?
