REACHING OUT TO THE CITY LIGHTS....CHAPTER 8

Oxlade Drive Riverfront...Brisbane River

                                            

                                            

Warana Festival Parade Circa late 1960s

                                        

Returning from our honeymoon, Mervyn and I settled into our life together as man and wife. I enjoyed decorating our little apartment in an attempt to make it feel like “home”. Life was fine for a while, but in time I became unsettled and restless within myself. I began to feel fenced in, trapped. Discontentment crept in. It became invasive.

What I was experiencing wasn’t Mervyn’s fault.  He was a good person. I didn’t fool myself. Fully aware I’d married on the rebound, it was up to me to face and deal with the consequences. We socialised often; spent weekends at Noosa Heads when we could juggle them in with our other commitments. Mervyn was still a surf lifesaver, and had to fulfill club responsibilities. Reading and music, pastimes enjoyed by us both, filled our quiet hours. Periodically, we enjoyed intimate dinner parties with friends. My love of cooking had a stage upon which to play. Recipe books began to take pride of place on my bookshelves joining my many other books. I was always eager to try something new in the cooking field.

Mervyn was a keen participant and taste-tester, although he constantly raised my ire when he insisted on adding tomato sauce to a bowl of Spaghetti Bolognese, or Worcestershire sauce to a special curry made from the blending of spices! To save myself from rapid increases in my blood pressure, I soon learned to hide the sauce bottles at the back of the fridge or cupboard. Without any feelings of guilt at my secretive deeds, I would tell him I’d carelessly run out of the sauces. He’d have to adapt his taste-buds to eating certain meals without the addition of sauces if he wished to survive!

Throughout the years, looking back to that time in my life, dissecting it and understanding it, I’ve spent many hours reflecting in an effort to understand my actions of rushing blindly into marriage. Randall’s desertion and flight overseas left me feeling betrayed, lost and alone, not that I admitted my feelings openly to anyone else. The majority of the time, my pain and hurt I kept to myself, with only a couple of weak, indiscreet moments. Obviously, one such unfortunate untimely moment was when I attempted to enter the church the day I chose to be married to someone else other than the love of my life.

For the next couple of years, I attempted to push Randall to the back of my mind and into a secret hidden cavern in my heart. My efforts succeeded for a short while, but persistently my memories of him kept recurring to taunt and haunt me. As hard as I tried, he was difficult to forget.  Randall had stolen my heart, and had failed to return it. Battling with the reality of my true feelings, I couldn’t get him out of my mind. His shadow hovered constantly; in my dreams, and in the daylight hours. Unremitting, interfering thoughts of him teased and tormented me. I was fully aware that I had no one to blame for my disquietude except myself. Without stepping back, spending time to think, I’d vaulted the truth, and plunged into the deep end without a life-preserver…with a lifesaver!

Almost three years into our marriage, and our life together had become robot-like. I knew Mervyn and I couldn’t continue living with our heads in the sand, pretending everything was all right. It wasn’t. Our arguments were minor and few, but we had descended into silences and remoteness. Knowing this wasn’t how life was meant to be, one evening I insisted we both sit down together to calmly discuss our situation. And we did. Brought out into the open, we were able to face each other honestly and reasonably as we dissected our lives, our marriage, and each other’s expectations and need. No blame was shed upon the other by either one of us. We had shared many fun times. Generally, we’d had a great time; as friends. We were just not meant to be a “married couple” forever.

Agreeing we were better off parting and going our separate ways, I chose to be the one to leave the” marital home”. We weren’t in a hurry to get a divorce as neither of us had any immediate plans to get married again. I’d decided I'd “been there and done that” and I didn’t intend “going there” again for a long time, if ever. Mervyn admitted he felt the same, so the idea of divorce was put on the back-burner.

More pressing matters were at hand, such as finding a place for me to move into. Within a couple of days, I found a flat in Oxlade Drive, New Farm, down the street and around the corner a short distance from where Mervyn and I had spent our brief time together. Plans were put into place for the big “move” to be on the Saturday. However, before that could happen, we received a telephone call from one of Mervyn’s sisters. She and her husband intended visiting Brisbane for the weekend. They asked if they could stay with us overnight on the Saturday. What could we say?

My move was put on “hold” until the following Saturday. The weekend was spent entertaining our visitors. Our guests had no idea of our plan, as we preferred to keep our personal business to ourselves. They were completely ignorant of how they'd upset our plans for the weekend. We could see the funny side of it all, though, carrying on as if everything thing was fine while they were with us. Not many people, I am sure, put off a separation to entertain guests!

The “exit” day arrived, again. My removal from the ‘marital home” could not be delayed a second time. Mervyn helped me pack and move, much to the delight of our upstairs neighbours who we had befriended. They were a young British couple, around similar ages to Mervyn and me. They thought they’d seen it all when he took off on foot towards my new abode with a tall bookcase resting on his head and shoulders. He’d made the bookcase for me, though not very handy in that department, he was very proud of his effort, and rightly so! The image of him walking down the streets with the bookcase aloft still brings a smile to my face every time I think about it.

Halfway through the relocation, we stopped work, and invited Terry and Christine, our upstairs friends, to join us in going into the city to view the “Warana” procession. It was “Warana Festival” week and the parade of colourful floats etc., was about to commence. Shaking their heads and laughing, Terry and Chris joined us in watching the brilliant parade of floats, clowns and entertainers of various kinds. Now they had seen and heard it all, they reckoned. No one ever stops in the middle of moving out, separating from a marriage to go and see a parade! No one except Mervyn and Lee, that is!

There was no animosity, no spite or bitterness in our separation. Mervyn and I remained friends until his passing approximately six years ago. Throughout the years he never failed to telephone me on my birthday and Christmas. I did similar.  We often emailed each other. Periodically he would phone for no reason other than to say “Hello”. He married again eventually. His wife, though we’ve never met face to face, have chatted many, many times through the years; and still do periodically. Through the years we became friends…friends who never met face to face. They had three children, a daughter, and twin sons.  They always kept me in the loop. Their daughter mentioned me when she read the eulogy at Mervyn’s funeral service. All’s well, that ends well. There was never any animosity, and there was never any reason for there to be any.

Five years or so after we separated, Mervyn rang me to enquire about us divorcing. I told him I would handle it myself, rather than donate money to solicitors for doing work I was more than capable of doing. I’d had five years legal experience. Divorce Law Reforms had come into being in the intervening years. We didn’t have joint property, or children to be taken into consideration. So, I typed up the necessary papers etc., and in time, our divorce came through. It cost us $45.00, which included my cab fares to and from the court.

I don't regret those almost hree years of marriage to Mervyn. I know he felt the same way about our time together. They were probably good for me. I matured. I needed that "life-line" to stay on course, I guess. Who knows? Life has its own mind, and plan. We are just mere puppets at its will; in its hands.

Settled into my new home on the banks of the Brisbane River, I ploughed my energies into my job with Kolotex Hosiery. For the previous couple of years, I’d frequently been expressing to my boss my dream of how positive and intelligent it would be if we could set up our own joint marketing “under our own roof”, wiping out the need of the wholesale agents. I believed by employing our own people to market and sell our products; the company would expand even further, as our own people would be working for the company, and themselves, putting their hearts, souls and loyalty into Kolotex. Something I didn’t believe we received from our agents’ salespeople, because the agents carried many different products manufactured by varying, diverse companies. One product soon became melded with the other in the minds of the salespeople. I spent hours and hours daydreaming. Even more hours were spent talking with my boss about my dream for a stand-alone Queensland office, showrooms and warehouse.

Our little Queen Street office in Heindorff House was bursting at the seams. Not only over the past couple of years had we hired two young men, increasing our number to four, but the “bigwigs” behind the tiller of Kolotex in Sydney had purchased a handbag company and factory. My boss announced his plans of employing a hosiery consultant to be placed in the hosiery departments of the city and suburban stores, promoting our lines. The consultant would be booked out to the retail stores on a weekly basis to market and sell Kolotex Hosiery. Initially my nose was a little bit put out of joint as I wanted so much to be out in the market-place, “hands-on” promoting the products of the company I so much believed in and loved. Although I said nothing about my feelings, my boss picked up on my discontent.

Taking me aside once afternoon when only he and I were in the office, he said, “Look…I know you think you’d like to do the consultancy work, but I know better. It’s not what I want for you. It’s a shit job…you don’t want it, I promise you. We are moving forwards and upwards. Busy times, very busy times are ahead of us. I need you by my side to help me do what has to be done. I want to know you will be with me, beside me…I want you to be my “right-hand-man”. This company is growing, and there are massive changes afoot.”

What he said to me that afternoon proved to be an understatement.

He poached a departmental manager from one of the major inner city stores to join us. Isabel became manager of the Glo International Handbags’ section of the Kolotex Group of Companies. Along with the hosiery consultant, our little office of two had multiplied into six. The growth wasn’t to stop there.

Shortly after the purchase of Glo International, The Kolotex Group of Companies added another company to its stables. Rogtex Men’s and Women’s Wear was the latest acquisition.

My boss formulated a plan based on his dreams and my daydreams of our ridding ourselves of the wholesale agents. He had always agreed with my vision for our own Queensland office etc. Putting together a professional business plan, which I helped him work on, he flew to Sydney to present our ideas to the “powers-that-be” in the head office, and to the Kolotex board.

Not long after his Sydney visit, we were instructed to say farewell to the office in Heindorff House. A search began for new, much, much bigger premises, incorporating warehouse space, showrooms, general office area, reception area, managerial offices, and staff room. The search for premises began, as did a search for our own sales representatives to service an area extending from Tamworth in New South Wales to Cairns in Far North Queensland, to the western border. Warehouse and office staff were part of the quest.

We were about to embark upon the ride of our lives. We were on the brink of a most thrilling, exciting and fulfilling ride; one full of surprises, achievements and unexpected occurrences. I was ready but even in my wildest dreams I couldn’t have imagined what was in store.

To be continued....