A Hard Joy

By Nadia Lozzi-Cuthbertson

The book opens as Livia Del Sarto starts to feel the effects of an injection of LSD. She is in a private clinic in Sydney. Her psychiatrist suggested the drug would speed up her therapy. She experiences an explosion of feelings that send her on an emotional roller coaster that is both confusing and liberating.

Livia recently left her husband, Martin Ridley, when she discovered he was involved with another woman. He is a complex, domineering man who is unable to commit to one relationship yet unwilling to let Livia go.

Against the social revolution of the 1970s, sexual attractions and rejections fuel their story and of those around them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Mar 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524561451

Book preview

1

It’s not going to work, Livia thought as she stood by the hospital window, looking at the rain falling in a gentle mist over the formal garden. It had been over fifteen minutes since the injection of LSD and by now she should be feeling nauseous.

The door behind her opened and Dr Willmot entered. He was a small, ageing man of neat appearance. He wore silver-rimmed, fashionably styled glasses and an impeccably tailored grey suit.

Severe early toilet training, Livia thought irrelevantly, but not for the first time.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked in his carefully neutral manner.

Even as she was about to answer, Livia felt the colour literally drain from her face and cold sweat broke out all over her. The nausea had arrived. She took a couple of deep breaths to steady herself and went to sit on one of the two armchairs.

‘Just go with it. Let things come to you,’ Dr Willmot leant over her and took her pulse.

Livia nodded, fighting down the sick feeling. Gradually it eased. She shifted her gaze from the psychiatrist to the window and out to the rain. It was so delicate, sad, beautiful. Slowly, without warning, tears began to trickle down her cheeks and with them came a great swelling of positive feeling for… for everything. She sought a focus for it, but it was so general. Dr Willmot sat on the other armchair, opposite her, waiting. He felt confident this patient would have a productive session.

Could words explain this sense of reaching outside oneself? Of realising there were no limits all along. Words were limited. Livia wanted the feeling to go on without interruptions. Words were slow, inadequate… but she was here to work. It was laborious, but she made herself speak. ‘I feel that I’m growing… inside. I feel good about everyone and everything. The milk of human kindness is flowing in my veins.’

A detached part of her registered the image and was amused. It also noticed how right it felt. Where had it come from? She didn’t talk like that.

‘Then why are you crying?’ the doctor was asking.

‘Because I also feel so sad.’ She probed the great internal vistas that were suddenly open to her. ‘For my mother. For Martin. For all of us.’ It was all within her grasp, so much to understand and feel, so little time. And it was wordless, intuitive. Pure right brain stuff—the mother lore! Livia grasped it, exulted over it, and dismissed it. Now was not the time for analysis. That would come later.

‘And yourself?’ The doctor was leaning slightly forward, demanding the very thing she didn’t want to do now—analyse, dissect, put what was happening into words.

‘No. I’m open. I’ll grow.’

She closed her eyes. It was like standing on a high, windy place—light that felt like music all around her. It was totally exhilarating, a time for hyperboles. She was fine! Whatever came out of this would be wonderful!

With her eyes still closed, she focused on her mother and felt an overwhelming love for her. The resentments and petty irritations always a background to her feelings towards Mamma were suddenly not important. Mamma’s bossy ways, her stubborn refusal to listen to anyone who didn’t agree with her ways, was just the way she was. The way she was moulded by life. Mamma could be no other way—and till now she herself had been limited by her own mould. The answer was so simple, yet hard to grasp. Years of accumulated anger, of having to comply when she wanted to defy, it was all there inside her—not flashing by in neat movie-like scenes, but there! Altogether, in one total experience! And so were all her feelings. She could ‘taste’ her impotent rage. Violent, primitive. She wanted to bite and render with teeth and claws, like an animal! Like a baby.

At the same time there was love! Pure, all encompassing, total acceptance, and admiration—for her mother, a woman so much larger than life.

It’s all me, Livia thought from her omniscient pinnacle—the animal, the anger, the love. But the love is more important. The vision wavered and another self commented, ‘This is all too Christ-like, kid; don’t let it go too far. Remember what happened to the last guy who loved everyone.’ And she felt herself laugh at the irreverence, filled with a hard, clear joy. Oh, to feel like this always!

In the attenuated light of the rainy spring morning, the psychiatrist waited patiently, a little surprised that this young woman was finding it so difficult to begin talking about the upsurge of emotions clearly being reflected in her attractive features.

‘And now . . . ?’

Dr Willmot’s words reminded her she hadn’t reopened her eyes. Intent on her inner journey, she had forgotten him. Tears were now streaming freely down her face, but she felt she was smiling. Really smiling, perhaps for the first time in her life. She reached for a tissue from the inevitable box and wiped her eyes and face.

‘I love my mother… yet I was so angry with her. Now I feel it melting away. It feels so good!’ Livia searched for words to convey the wonder of the change inside her. ‘Sometimes I was close to hating her. Now I love her. Mamma could only act as she did—I understand it at last. No. More than that, I know it.’

Livia broke off, impatient with the slowness of words. Inside her the world was being remade; she had no time for explanations right now. Without thinking it through, she asked, ‘Doctor, leave me alone for a while. Please! It’s all going too fast inside me. Explaining slows it. Interferes. I’ll tell you later.’

The psychiatrist was perplexed. He hadn’t expected this. Sure, this patient was pretty self-assured and had a lot of ego strengths, but people under LSD tended to regress to very dependent and insecure states. She had only just started, anything might happen.

Livia could almost hear him thinking, He’s worried that this positive wave will pass and I won’t be able to cope with the other part—is there another frightening part to come? I can cope with it! I must reassure him. Give him some control. He needs to feel it’s safe to leave me. Her thinking seemed faster than ever before, and she felt unfettered by the need to meet the expectations of others. Impatiently she pressed her request.

‘Whatever else happened to me as a child, my parents made me feel I could take on the world and win—and deep down I quite believe it. I’m not self-destructive.’

She smiled with what she hoped looked like confidence, if one could look confident with eyes streaming and nose running. Why did she always cry when she felt something strongly? What a bloody nuisance! Ha, swearing now?! Interesting.

The flood of sensations, thoughts, and myriad details went on increasing and with it the excitement. Her mind was in overdrive. So much to think about, and he was taking an age over a simple request. Time was crawling and flying. She pushed some more.

‘I want to flow with this… it’s important, and explaining slows it down. Give me time to myself. You could have a nurse check on me from time to time.’ She reached out and patted his hand reassuringly. ‘I’m fine. I really am!’

She almost saw the moment when Dr Willmot made up his mind to agree and promptly dismissed him. ‘And please ask the nurse to bring me some water. Crying makes me thirsty… and I’ll be doing a lot of that. Always do when I’m all stirred up.’

He hesitated and Livia knew she’d gone too fast. Was talking too much. Pushing him too hard… but he was so slow!

Dr Willmot was startled. He was not used to being dismissed by patients, especially at the start of an obviously very emotional therapy session. They always wanted his support, his guidance, their money’s worth. Nor had he noticed such self-assurance in Mrs Ridley in their preliminary sessions when he had suggested LSD to her as a means of quickly getting at some of the reasons for her behaviour towards her estranged husband.

For Livia, this ‘new’ authority wasn’t a surprise. It was always there, masked by her efforts to be the daughter her mother wanted, with her and with everyone, except Martin. Correction! The daughter she ‘thought’ her mother wanted! The realisation was like a jolt.

My reactions to Mamma are my own! There’s always two of us in the equation. Good God, Dr Freud, you never gave that much prominence! Or maybe I missed it… sort of deliberately. No! Personal responsibility is not a big item in psychological theory. Sure, it’s the goal, but it’s not given much coverage in personality development.

Livia felt inordinately pleased with herself for being able to think clearly and rationally after an injection of LSD, when she’d been warned to expect all sorts of nonsensical reactions, and to do it while waiting for a constipated doctor to make himself scarce.

Dr Willmot saw Livia’s attention was somewhere else. She had known he was about to agree to her request and promptly started behaving as if he had already gone. He felt slightly annoyed, but quickly brought it under control. It felt safe to leave her for a while. It might be counterproductive to do otherwise; but was she testing him? All of his trainings told him patients going through emotional crises tested their therapists in a million ways. Yet this didn’t feel like that. Mrs Ridley sounded quite rational, in control. And control was important to her. He took off his glasses and tapped them thoughtfully on the arm of his chair, studying Livia.

The movement caught the young woman’s attention, and again it was like hearing him think aloud.

‘I will not feel rejected. And I’m not testing you. Truly I’m not. I’ll be fine, I promise you.’ She caught the hint of surprise on his face and beamed, childishly pleased with her accurate guess. ‘It’s all quite logical, it’s what I’d be thinking in your place,’ she said.

The psychiatrist signed inwardly. She was showing off now. Part of the struggle for supremacy, so often present when one treated a person with training in psychiatry or psychology. No need to deal with it now; it would interfere with what was emerging. Yes, it was best to give her time alone.

‘All right,’ Dr Willmot said. ‘I’ll leave you for a while. Someone will check on you from time to time. The moment anything worries you, ask for me. There’s a bell over there.’ He waited for her answer.

Livia nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said and closed her eyes once again, returning to the next chapter of ‘revelations according to LSD’, amused with the pun.

What am I really like? she asked herself. What is me, and what have I learned to do to propitiate the gods? Hey, this is getting heavy! Why all this religious stuff? A childlike and rebellious part of herself demanded to know.

And the answer was there. That’s what Mamma and all grown-ups are. Gods! You either learn how to keep them on the side or they get angry and then life is dangerous… out of control.

It was all there! Again she marvelled at the way it was all there! Coping with her mother’s excessive angers, the joy when she was loving, the terror of her rejection—it was all painted in bold overpowering strokes. No subtle shadings. And all through it Livia knew she had longed for a middle way. Her father’s way.

Living it all again, Livia became aware of the judge and jury within her forever judging Mamma, even when she understood and loved her most. For an eternity, she faced the images of the past and the knowledge of her own remorseless scrutiny of her mother’s failings. A sickening wave of shame choked her joy. How pitiless were some of those judgements! How smug! And how well she had disguised her treacherous heart! She had never mustered the courage to tell her mother what she thought—not even now, as an adult.

The sense of shame was devastating. She felt utterly worthless. Her mother loved her, and for years she’d repaid her like this.

What a supercilious coward I am! In her place I couldn’t have managed to survive, much less look after two children—alone, with a husband away at the front and a war going on. The harsh reality of her mother’s early life engulfed Livia. Terror had been all round them, yet Mamma had been her only source of security. Her barometer for how bad, how dangerous things were.

Livia sat, overwhelmed by guilt and despair, unable to think of reprieve.

‘Mamma, forgive me.’ She sobbed and abruptly the world changed. The light returned and she heard herself think, You have to forgive yourself… and learn compassion from it.

A deep calm gradually came over the young woman. At a very central level, she knew she had stumbled across a fundamental truth. Its many facets unfolded within her, unbidden. It had all been said in so many ways… by so many people. Judge others as you would be judged. The law of karma. Now she had experienced it directly.

The door opened and a nurse came in bringing a glass and a carafe of water. She looked uneasily at Livia’s tearstained face and asked, ‘Ready to see the doctor?’

Livia opened her eyes and forced herself to focus on a reality that threatened to reduce the force and meaning of what was happening inside her—the only reality which mattered at this point.

‘No. Not yet. Tell him I need more time—and that I am well.’ She drank some water as the nurse compulsively checked all in the room was in order, then, somewhat reassured, left.

Livia brought her thoughts back to her feelings for her mother. How did I get to be so ready to judge her so harshly?

She felt around in the storehouse of her memories and of course she knew, had realised it long ago. It was Mamma’s way. ‘She’ was forever weighing everyone and everything, always critically. Compassion was seldom involved. Papa had often questioned Mamma’s judgements. Gently at times; at others he would simply disagree. Mamma could get very angry when Papa refused to accept her verdicts.

Papa seemed to see/understand so much more, Livia thought, the two words fusing into one complex meaning in her mind. He saw all the bad things as well as Mamma, but they didn’t matter to him, they didn’t drag him down and hurt him in the same way. He didn’t need to hurt back!

Yes, Papa is the measure against which I judge myself. That is the essence of it. Coming here today… looking at myself. Wanting to be free of my jealousy, my pettiness… wanting to understand… I owe that to him. Love and admiration for her father, abiding aspects of her life, reassured her now. It was all right to question, to disagree. It was the way she did it that had to improve.

Maybe if he’d been alive, he’d have helped me understand Martin. Cope with him better. He would’ve helped Martin. Fresh tears blinded her. The void left by her father suddenly as fresh and frightening as when they were first told of the accident. She had mourned his death ever since. When he was there, the world had solid foundations.

Adriano is like him in a lot of ways. Imperceptibly Livia found herself thinking of her older brother and for the first time became aware of how much she had come to depend on him and how much Martin had resented it.

When she first met Martin, she told him Adriano was her childhood hero—and responsibility. He didn’t see danger, never thought about Mamma’s warnings, always off on another great game he’d just invented. Livia had followed him about, an apprehensive censor, wanting to be included in the fun, afraid of breaking rules she half understood.

‘Mamma said not to do that! Mamma said to come home right away.’ The war was on; Papa wasn’t there and Mamma got upset so easily.

By the time Giulio was born, she was nearly 7, the war was over, Papa was back, and life was no longer filled with terror. Giulio was a gentle child. Quieter, less adventurous than his older brother. He lived in his imagination and wasn’t as driven by male hormones.

Adriano was irrepressible. Ready to try anything. Careless with his clothes and schoolwork. He’d make a game of everything, and being with him was always fun—but he was forever in trouble with Mamma.

‘Stop fooling around, Adriano. Do your homework! I told you a million times not to do that! Don’t you ever think?! Your school marks are terrible! You’re going to be a nothing when you grow up!’

Livia could hear the litany of abuse and see the beatings when Mamma lost her temper. With it came her own reactions—She’s wrong! Mamma’s wrong!—never to be voiced. Quickly she had learned not to cause her mother’s anger. Her father was away or at work. He’d listen to explanations. Hers, not Adriano’s. He’d shake his head at his son and say, ‘You’ve got to think, figlio mio.’ And he’d let Mamma’s punishment stand.

Mamma loved Adriano and worried about him—too much. She was desperate for him to grow up responsible, with a sense of purpose. To straighten out. Discipline was what he needed. She reasoned with him, exhorted him, and then lost her temper. And Adriano tried. He tried so hard! But sooner or later he would think of another game, usually when they were supposed to be studying, and Livia’s pleadings and warnings were never a great deterrent.

Livia hated it when Adriano got into trouble. It made her feel guilty, threatened. So she had learned to manipulate her mother and to a lesser extent her father. To keep them talking, thinking, rather than reacting too quickly. She learned to hide Adriano’s mistakes. To lie, to cover up for them, all the time resenting having to do it. But anything was better than to see Adriano punished!

Martin was jealous when I told him about those days. She recalled. Jealous of the closeness he never had with his sister. Maybe . . .

Thinking about it, Livia understood something else. Martin was jealous she’d worked so hard to humour her mother for her brother’s sake, while she made no such effort to defuse his bad moods. Those she had confronted with almost reckless determination.

Her explanations had done nothing to appease Martin. ‘A child has to compromise and submit to adults.’ She had very much wanted him to understand. ‘We are equals. I need to be open with you. I can’t live the rest of our lives manipulating you. Afraid to be me.’ They were not equals in his mind. He hadn’t understood.

Then she was reliving interminable squabbles over who had said and done what, the hours and days of not speaking, the stubbornness with which each had tried to master the other. Neither trusting nor surrendering to the other. It was another phase of her relationship with her mother. She saw it with unnerving clarity. Mamma was the centre of it all. How Freudian! What an unfair burden on mothers! Such a losing situation. Fathers often away, doing whatever men do to keep busy. While women—mothers—took the brunt of being the centre of their children’s universe, so that forever after they were blamed for their confused little minds.

Good insight, but too much of a generality. Now wasn’t the time for those. The drug had a short life. She went back to remembering her time with Martin.

I didn’t humour him like I do my mother—by being pliable, diplomatic, and all the other things she needs. If I had, we wouldn’t have clashed so bitterly. No, with Martin I behaved like Mamma does. I demanded that he love me. The real ‘me’, not the dutiful daughter. Anybody can like/love her—but me? The judgemental, supercilious, easily hurt me? She can’t stay bottled up forever. I wanted him to love that person. But is ‘she’ lovable?

The paradox that had been her life with Martin flooded her now. The periods of great happiness, when they seemed to be so inextricably close, able to feel and anticipate each other’s moods and thoughts. The fights without quarter, superficially over something minor, in reality over dominance or subjection.

Was there no other way? It now felt so futile, stupid. Like a monolith, Martin had blocked the stream of her life, forcing her to find new pathways around or over him. But this was her first honest effort to do it differently. For years she’d simply gone on butting against the monolith. Dumb! She’d been so intent on scoring points she hadn’t seen she was losing in the only way it mattered. By being unhappy. It had taken a major upheaval to bring this glimmer of wisdom. Martin had pushed her to this, without intending it. Martin wanted something else. He wanted a wife that deferred entirely to his wishes and judgement—his whims at times. Many of their clashes exploded out of her refusal to be what he wanted her to be.

Livia could still feel the shock of first realising Martin expected her and women in general to fit in with their husband’s wishes. It had never been that way between her parents. Mamma was too strong and her father didn’t seem to need proofs of his authority. He accepted Gianna, his wife, with all her fears, love, and contradictions. There was a central core of calm and detachment about him.

Mamma sometimes accused him of being too objective, of not caring enough. But none of them ever felt she meant it. Most of the time it was clear he was a kind of refuge for her, from life, of how it had cheated and hurt her. Papa’s death frightened Mamma. For the first time, she began to look on her children as near adults and to give them the rights Papa had insisted on.

Then along came Martin, wanting to put the clock back for her. To make her a lesser person again, dependent, even if she earned her living and was a grown woman. Yet because she was a woman—female—he thought she had fewer rights. That concept was alien to Livia. She had never lived with it before, couldn’t accept it.

A seemingly endless series of clashes between them came flooding back. For all her newfound compassion and love for Martin, Livia felt afraid. Was there a solution? This was so fundamental, so crucial. He didn’t consider it his problem, only hers. But there could be no love if one of them had to be diminished. The pain of that thought was stronger than ever. She felt such love for Martin now, but would it last if he refused to look past his narrow system of hierarchies which divided men off from women?

Remembering one of their many stupid fights about it, Livia wondered how else she could have handled it.

They had been in a happy mood working together in the garden, then Martin couldn’t find the big spade he needed to move some sand. Livia remembered having seen it in the garage, but not in its usual place. She got it for him.

‘Here’s the spade. It’s not lost after all.’

‘Hey, I ought to put you over my knee for not putting it back properly.’ He made to grab her.

Livia laughed and avoided him, letting the spade go. It fell, the handle landing on his foot, without any great force.

‘Punished by fate for being a bully.’ Livia was still laughing.

‘Now you’re really for it.’

Martin lunged for her, no longer quite so amused. This time he seized her, sat on a low wall, and tried to drag her across his knees, but stopped as he saw the stony look on his wife’s face and felt the force of her resistance.

‘I’m sorry it hit you, but this isn’t funny anymore. Please let me go!’ Livia spoke quietly, intensely, her face and emotions under tight control. She was trying hard to keep calm, but inside she wanted to shout at him. Everything had changed so quickly. Being spanked like a naughty child—or the archetypal toy-woman of men’s fantasies—was too humiliating to accept. All pretence of it being a game went and they looked at each other as enemies.

‘Jesus bloody Christ! You’ve no sense of humour! It’s only a joke—harmless fun.’ Martin shoved her away from him, rage ballooning inside him, needing a physical outlet, wanting to hurt her.

Livia stumbled back a few steps but retained her footing. Her anger barely controlled, she looked at him contemptuously. ‘Maybe it was a joke to you—for me it wasn’t fun.’

‘Sometimes a woman should forget her dignity to please her husband. Getting spanked could’ve been fun.’ He was so angry he was spitting the words at her.

‘Why would you want to… to diminish me for fun?’ Livia struggled to be logical, to make him understand, knowing this was at the core of so much else that separated them.

‘I wasn’t trying to diminish you, you stupid bitch! It was a game!’ He got up and stood menacingly, very close to her.

‘And if it’d been the other way around?’ Livia stood her ground, fighting for calm, not to provoke him into an irreparable situation, determined not to back down, keenly aware how quickly he had started to insult her.

‘But you’re a woman… I’m stronger! You couldn’t spank me.’ The physical menace receded, replaced by a wild impatience.

‘Then it’s not a game! It’s a matter of force. It’s not fun for the person who’s being forced… can’t you see that!’ She tried to be persuasive, not defiant, still wanting to scale down this thing which had started from nothing.

He looked at her for a long moment, too angry to speak, feeling she had tricked him into an admission he hadn’t intended making. Then with an angry dismissive gesture, he said, ‘You twist every bloody thing! But it won’t change the facts—you’re a woman and I’m a man.’

‘What a great discovery! So what? Does it make you better? Give you special status? You can use force… but it won’t make it right!’ She was burning with contempt now and showing it.

They had gone at it a while longer and then lapsed into mutual silence. That lasted a couple of days and nights. Then on the third night, as had happened many times before, they stopped avoiding each other’s eyes and reached for each other in bed—and everything was put aside as they made love. Put aside but not resolved. They didn’t even agree to disagree. Their differences just went on mounting; yet at the beginning of each truce, they were very gentle with each other and they would try so hard.

Deep down neither wanted to change. Each thought the other wrong. Livia thought now about what Martin wanted her to be and knew it was beyond her—and any sane woman. Women who fitted such a yoke exacted a price of their men—in sullenness, frigidity, and stunted emotions. Would Martin ever understand? What new way should she try?

He’d refused to see any parallel when she’d said they would end up like his parents. Martin’s mother, Jennifer, bitterly resented and disliked her husband. There was no tenderness there, but she stayed with him and lived a cheerless life, enduring his loveless, selfish ways. Her resentment like bile, a blight on their every exchange. And George Ridley knew. Without ever admitting it, he knew! Punishing each other in a bitter, never-ending cycle, in a mean struggle that diminished them both.

Martin said other things had poisoned his parents’ marriage. But to Livia, it was all too clear. It was George’s belief he had a God-given right to do as he wished and that his wife had no right to expect otherwise. Poverty and two children had kept Jennifer bound for years—but she made him pay!

The nurse entered the room quietly and waited for Livia to look at her. ‘How is it going?’ she asked.

‘Well. I feel great,’ Livia answered with an effort, aware of swollen eyes and the tears that wouldn’t stop. ‘I am making progress.’ She poured another glass of water.

The nurse watched as Livia drank, not quite satisfied, but the patient seemed calm and lucid. As she went out, she realised she had seldom seen patients cry. They were angry, depressed, vacant, manic, and all sorts of other things, but they seldom cried. It seemed strange. You’d expect patients in a psychiatric clinic, even a state-of-the-art private one like this, would have a great deal to cry about.

Livia returned to being with Martin and the same overwhelming feeling of acceptance she felt for her mother now gave depth and something akin to grace to the once bitter realisation that Martin was a chauvinist—and he could be nothing else! Not with his kind of father! Many images of George Ridley came to life in Livia’s mind and she was amazed to feel a good-humoured wish to hug the old man and say to him, ‘You’re so busy being a bad-tempered, mean old devil you’ve missed out on all the good feelings of life. You got loads of attention, but nobody likes or loves you. Was it worth it?’

I must do it soon. Livia chuckled at the thought of facing Grumpy George (she ‘had’ to call him that to his face!) with some good-humoured confrontation instead of the cold, compliant rejection Jennifer and all his family used. It might make him think.

Another part of her mulled over the sudden understanding she now felt for Martin, his father, and yes, her own father and brothers and so many other men—in fact all men!—trapped in their sense of superiority towards women. With dismay, Livia couldn’t think of a single man who wasn’t at least in part a chauvinist.

The thought was staggering, but she felt no anger or resentment at the terrible suffering and injustice this attitude had created throughout history, because another part of her was reeling under the impact of understanding that almost all women—or was it all women?—lived life through another equally crippling set of limits.

Livia could think of no easily recognised word to describe these. But she knew them, and they had been part of the poison which ruined her life with Martin.

The perspective shifted and Livia felt it all from Martin’s side—and she cringed. He must have truly loved her to endure it at all. It had slowly made him into all she had accused him of being. She had remembered all his sins and not forgiven them! ‘That’ had gradually withered his love for her, and with it, his wish to change also died.

Martin was at a personal crossroad when Livia met him. He had been separated from his wife for eight years and there had been many, many women in that time, but at 35, he started to want some depth in his relationships. To need commitment. He had even got his wife to divorce him, something he had carefully avoided for years. It had been such a useful excuse with women to say that his wife wouldn’t divorce him. Talking about it to Livia when they met, he said he’d finally felt it was time to grow up.

Livia thought back to their first months, years together. They had known a feeling that was total loving acceptance, each bringing out the best in the other. Slowly they had both changed. Livia knew she had changed. Had become petty, unforgiving. An unending sequence of stupid, unnecessary scenes bombarded her. She had wanted to punish Martin. That was at the core of it—punishment!

We women are the punishers! Livia thought, overcome with revulsion and despair.

Oh, I know it wasn’t all my doing. Martin was in there making his own mistakes and what had started off so clean and good became twisted… dying. Neither of us knew how to cope with his ‘woman hunger’. That wrecked it totally.

Memories of jealousy so corroding, so violent even now they were scary came rushing back. Every time he ‘reacted’ to another woman, she had felt betrayed. Alienated. Progressively it got worse. Martin denied everything at first, then made fun of it, then became angry. It was normal for a man to be attracted to women. What was all the fuss about? Why was she being stupid?

‘Because I know it’s more than the usual passing interest. One day you’ll let it become more,’ she had answered, desperate for him to care enough to stop, or to control his exaggerated responses, fighting to overcome the urge to revenge herself for forcing her to live through the pain of his inevitable desertion time and time again.

But if men felt trapped by permanent relationships, why had they relentlessly imposed permanent ownership on women throughout the ages? Surely they had to understand women had human feelings too. Or didn’t it matter so long as they controlled the relationships, for when had masters ever cared how slaves felt? Maybe she was thinking in extreme terms, but she wanted none of it. Neither to be a master nor a punishing slave.

I don’t want to be like that! No matter what Martin’s like, I’m responsible for me! I won’t be a punisher! It’s worse than a prison; it destroys from the inside. She knew, really ‘knew’ how the urge to punish had made her more unhappy than anything Martin had done. But do I have a choice about how I feel and what I do?

And the answer was alive inside her! Seeing things differently was reshaping her world right now. Her situation hadn’t changed, yet the world was different. She was different! Livia was filled with wild exhilaration. The possibilities were endless. The sense of freedom and power overwhelming! I’ll find a better way for us to live together. She exulted. Then bleak reality reasserted itself. How? How can a million years of conditioning be changed?

A new vista opened before her—little boys growing up into men, driven by their hormones to be more aggressive, and in the struggle for survival, developing set hierarchies among themselves. Little girls growing into women, more passive. Biologically tuned to the survival of the future—their children. Fitting into men’s hierarchies at a lower, usually dominated level. Growing resentful of their status and its restrictions as time passed. Venting their resentment in hundreds of poisonous undermining ways. Making husbands and sons pay, being punished and hurt in return. The cycle of mutual torment going on and on, from generation to generation. Wanting love, getting pain; wanting to give love, crippling instead.

How could all this be changed in her lifetime? Feminism?! That was part of it, but not without facing up to the underlying biological matrix.

Then another answer was suddenly there. Pervading everything, like inextinguishable, life-giving light.

The need to punish is not part of me. It doesn’t feel ingrained in me… like the determination not to let Martin humiliate me. That is, the need to punish feels alien. I’ve learnt it… from Mamma, and she learnt it… from ‘Nonno’? Probably. It was the way grandfather brought up children. He called it discipline, but it was forcing them into a mould. Mamma was forced into a mould. And Martin, men, women, everyone, we’re all still shaped by sex roles determined in the days of the hunter-gatherers. Hunters, warriors became dominant. It was all about survival. But this is the space age. Warriors are relics of the past. Roles appropriate then were no longer necessary. Humanity has to adapt to this new environment.

It was stunning! The power of the larger pattern over the flow of her life, over that of all humanity, was breath-taking. And the large pattern—the matrix—inevitably was pushing them all towards change. Humanity had shaped its own environment, and to cope with those changes, individuals had to change. A new way of interacting between women and men was now part of the larger pattern. Livia was certain of it.

A great wave of relief and contentment swept over her. Her instincts were in tune with the future. Hers wasn’t mere cussed stubbornness. Yet it would be hard for Martin—for men—to accept these changes; the matriarchs too would fight it. They were the strictest keepers of tradition. Determinedly inflicting the yoke on younger women so as not to miss their turn to wield power. Yes, no matter how second-hand, no one renounced power easily.

It would take generations. The great mill of evolution might be on her side, but it ground excruciatingly slowly.

The slow march of humanity along an immensely intricate yet inescapably logical pattern was now there before her. To see it, she had to step way back, out of the everyday swirl which hid the larger meaning. Then little of what first seemed important retained its significance. What emerged was the slow build-up of consequences to form broad directions. And with it, devastatingly, she grasped how really restricted was the freedom to be different each individual human being had.

Understanding dissolved the last vestiges of bitterness. Livia felt healed. Born anew, sane and free. This was what the great sages of the world had talked about—Jesus, Buddha, people like that. Why was it so rare to actually experience it? Why was she feeling it now? Why her?

Again the answer was inexcusably simple—obvious. Anyone could feel it; the trick was wanting to and facing the furies that turned you away, caught you up in the web of your own pain, never giving you a chance to feel the pain of the person hurting you.

She felt herself laugh, cry, feel more alive, younger, and more timeless than ever before. The power of this revelation was miraculous—it was pure joy—it was better than great sex!

Livia stretched sensuously, aware of her body, her surroundings, wanting to be out in the rain, close to nature. She went to the window and, looking out at the sodden garden, thought there ought to be a rainbow out there. After all, this enlightenment the sky should open and there should be a sign.

This new, irreverent aspect of herself pleased her. This joy and freedom left no room for being serious and pompous, like all rigidly religious people she had ever known. This truth was there for everyone to know! There was nothing special about what she was finding out in one flying leap. Many others had talked about it—people only had to look inside—not to outside authorities!

The door opened and Dr Willmot came in, his expression almost as neutral as ever, his disapproval barely showing through.

Livia checked her watch. Over an hour had passed since he had left her. He had been patient. It was time to try it his way, even if she didn’t think it would be as fast, or as significant.

Another god to be propitiated? she thought, even as he said, ‘I think we need to talk about what’s happening and why.’

‘Yes, I must try out all of my newfound wisdom.’ Smiling, Livia walked to a wastebasket in a corner of the room, picked it up, then going to the heap of wet tissues beside her chair, scooped them into the basket and put it down. Maybe she wasn’t done clearing out her psyche, just yet.

‘Tidiness is important to me,’ she commented, realising it was irrelevant, not caring. Then she sat and waited while the doctor did the same.

2

The rain had stopped falling, but the promise of more to come lingered in the air. Peach trees in blossom contrasted with the golden yellow of the wattle. The clinic didn’t have a big garden, and Livia’s walk proved shorter than she anticipated. She retraced her steps meandering slowly. Dr Willmot didn’t want her to leave the hospital grounds. It was one of the conditions she had agreed to, as well as staying overnight. Both were required of all patients having LSD therapy.

It protects people at a sensitive time, Livia thought. Not necessary in my case, but one night is nothing.

She passed the car park and saw she had left her parking lights on. It was foggy when she came in—a century ago—at eight this morning. It was after twelve now and she had lived through a lifetime. Best of all, she felt free, clean, at peace, in touch with the world and not afraid of it.

She unlocked the car and switched off the lights. She nearly sat down, but knew if one of the staff saw her, they might think she was about to drive off. She relocked the car and walked away. Was she still humouring the gods? Yes, but sometimes it made sense. This was a psychiatric clinic and there was no point in getting into an unnecessary scene with people who lived by inflexible rules.

After walking once more round the grounds, Livia went to the phone box in the entrance foyer of the hospital and rang Martin. She had told the doctor she intended doing it. He had obviously disagreed, but limited himself to suggesting she might wait for the effects of the drug to wear off a little. She’d tried waiting, but time was dragging by now. She needed to speak to Martin, share with him this happiness, this freedom.

‘Martin Ridley. Hello?’ His voice sounded curt, impatient.

For an interminable moment, Livia couldn’t speak. Then very hesitantly, she said, ‘Martin—it’s me. Can you talk?’ He’d be impossibly tense if there was someone with him.

‘Livia!’ Surprise, caution, and what else echoed in his voice? ‘Sure, I can talk,’ he answered quietly.

What did she want? They had been separated for over a month. Why was she calling him? It wasn’t like her to make the first move. Not after what had happened.

‘I’d like to see you—to talk. I’ve just been through… something very important.’ Livia searched for words that wouldn’t seem too dramatic. She didn’t want him afraid of walking into a hysterical scene.

‘Sure…,’ Martin hesitated. ‘Where? When?’

To Martin it all sounded very stilted and so polite. He felt disoriented and strangely disturbed. Livia sounded friendly! This couldn’t be the angry rejecting person who left him. ‘She’ wouldn’t piss on him if he was laying in the gutter—on fire!

‘Tomorrow… in the afternoon. When you come back from seeing your daughter.’

‘Yes… where? Not at your mother’s!’ I am not going to face Mamma Del Sarto and maybe the whole clan, he almost said out loud.

‘No, not there. How about Lady Macquarie’s chair. We can walk, look at the harbour, and talk.’

‘All right. About four?’ Again he hesitated. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes! Yes… better than I’ve ever been.’

Livia stopped herself from gushing forth. He was so wary of her, she had to give him time to adjust. She had changed, he hadn’t. It would take time.

Martin listened to his wife’s voice and a wave of tenderness swept over him—and fear. She had found someone else! Christ! That was quick! Why should he care? He had someone else—two others in fact. But how could she get over him so quickly? The jumble of feelings inside him was fierce and surprising.

‘Are you there, Martin? Tomorrow at four. OK?’

‘Yes. See you then.’

Without waiting, he replaced the receiver and went on staring at it, confused by the sudden longing he felt for the past. Impatient with himself, he rose, walked to the window, and stood looking at the dismal scene of neglected inner-city housing, dripping in the fine spring rain.

It didn’t help that from a hundred yards away, the view of the harbour was spectacular. His window looked onto a paved courtyard and the backyards of half a dozen other terrace houses, mostly in need of repairs. A few trees enlivened the scene, but it was all cramped and stifling, especially on such a miserable, claustrophobic day. Sometimes it felt like a personal affront that Europeans had come to this wide empty land and built cities in the same cramped, mean-minded way of a country where land was scarce.

He was still staring out of the window, lost in thought when there was a hesitant knock on the door. A petite young woman paused in the doorway. She was blond and attractive, with a fragile quality that usually made Martin feel immensely strong and protective.

‘Carol, do come in.’ He went to meet her. At the door he took her hand and squeezed it as he walked her to a chair in front of his desk. ‘You look beautiful, as usual.’

He sat in front of her, the better to admire her legs. He was a tall powerfully built man of craggy good looks and fine, light brown hair beginning to recede. He looked fit and all of his 39 years.

The girl beamed. ‘Well, I’ve just finalised the recruitment of the other two clerks Jennings & Hamilton have been hounding me for, and I’ve had Gordon Jennings telling me of his undying gratitude for what felt like forever—he stutters so much… I dread speaking to him.’

She brushed her long straight hair back and crossed her graceful legs, deliberately careless of her miniskirt.

‘Cigarette?’

Martin proffered a packet and took one himself after she had done so. Then he lit their cigarettes and sat back, curiously reluctant to talk.

Carol didn’t seem to notice his silence as she sailed into a lament on the difficulty of finding the ‘right’ people when clients didn’t know what kind of person they needed. It was light-hearted, fill-in chatter. She went on for a while before noticing Martin’s deepening scowl. Gradually she picked up his tension and then his annoyance, sensing it was directed at her. She tried to stop talking, confused by his sudden change of mood.

‘They do waste a lot of our time.’ She trailed off.

‘But they pay your wages and for this not so palatial office. Plus all the other perks we manage to screw out of them… then they give us the opportunity to sneer at them.’ Martin sprawled in his chair. He spoke, disdainfully, without a hint of a smile.

‘I didn’t mean… I only…’ Carol felt the weight of Martin’s cold stare and all of the excitement and pleasure of being with him disappeared. This biting, nasty side of him frightened her, made her feel helpless. Yet he could be so gentle and protective.

‘Yeah, I know. You were just babbling.’ Martin was surprised at the thrill of pleasure he felt as his insult added to her confusion and embarrassment.

‘Martin, I’m sorry.’ Much against her will, Carol found herself close to tears. She bent her head, trying to hide her misting eyes behind the curtain of her hair.

‘Hey, that’s enough. It’s my fault, I’m just in a bad mood,’ he said, repenting his unnecessary harshness. As usual I’m using a sledgehammer to kill an ant, he thought.

Carol felt the heavy shadow lift and something akin to gratitude washed over her. She smiled at Martin. She must be more careful with him; now that he and his wife had separated, she didn’t want to lose him.

‘No, it was me. I was prattling on without thinking. It’s so nice being with you.’ She smiled and her whole face lit up.

She’s beautiful, he thought feeling oddly detached. But I don’t like her. Not as a person. What the hell am I doing? Why am I playing with her? Did I turn my life inside out to get this woman into bed? Now what? On to the next one, and the next? It all felt so empty and meaningless. He needed to be alone, to think.

‘Listen, I have reports to write. I’ll come over to your office as soon as I finish. I hope you don’t mind.’ Martin spoke quickly, aware she’d guess he wanted to get rid of her. Not caring if she did. But there were always reports to write and he was always late with them. He rose, forcing Carol to do the same, and opened the door for her, absently patting her on the bottom as she hesitated near him. ‘See you later, ah…,’ he said to cover the awkward moment.

The young woman knew she was being dismissed and didn’t know how to deal with it and the continuing changes in him. What have I done wrong? she thought as she walked back to her office. Everyone bitches about the clients. It’s a conversation starter. Martin does it all the time. He’s the one who makes the cruellest jokes about them!

Martin closed the door and went back to his desk. He didn’t have another appointment until after lunch, but he did have a lot of reports to finish. He looked moodily at the bundle of files in his in-tray.

What the hell was Livia up to? She had sounded so friendly and ready to fit in with him. Wasn’t that just like her—bloody unpredictable? You could always count on her never to do what you expected. Living with her was hard work. She was prickly and bloody determined to be treated like an equal. Not like ‘another one of his women’. Which of course, she wasn’t! The silly bitch couldn’t see the obvious.

Where had they gone wrong? It had been good between them. As long as they weren’t trying to prove some stupid point, it still could be. No other woman understood him as well—too bloody well! It is hard living with someone who knows your dark side and lets you know she knows.

Livia left the phone, relieved she had made contact with Martin. The need to see him and share this clean love she had recaptured was urgent. With no one else, could she communicate at the same depth, in as many ways? From somewhere in the clinic, she heard a piano and automatically made her way towards the sound. Someone was playing Chopin with haunting sensitivity. Melancholia and a sense of maybe hopeless struggle pervaded the music.

She eventually came to some sort of common room where a few people sat in armchairs, reading or just listening. A very young girl was at a piano, framed by a large bay window, playing without music, seeming completely involved in the beautiful sound. Livia found a chair, a little apart from the others, and sat down. Her impulse, to reach out and comfort the musician checked by the presence of others. There were no visions or patterns of lights, like LSD plus music was said to bring, just a torrent of poignant feelings, a deep sense of estrangement, a never-ending search for meaning, hope mingled with despair. The human condition.

3

Livia met Martin at one of Naomi’s parties. One of those rare occasions when her friend forgot most people bored her and gave in to the urge to dazzle and outrage. Naomi was like that; everything about her was exaggerated, extreme, but honest. Livia loved Naomi’s fierce determination to be herself, not to fit into the expectations of others. She was 18 when they first met. Naomi had come ambling up to her, on that first day of orientation week at the university, and stood towering over Livia, wearing jeans, sandals, and one of those loose Indian cotton shirts.

The grounds of Sydney University were swarming with new students, maps in hand, trying to find their future lecture rooms and getting information about the other fascinations university life offered, while