Theresa Jones

Theresa Jones lived in Ongara, a small Victorian town of some 20,000 inhabitants, about an hours drive on the big new motorway from Melbourne. Her story is an unhappy one, and no doubt a lesson of sorts to those of us given to musing on character and fate.

There is no need to detail the full story of Theresa's life. For much of its length it was as ordinary as the next. She was born and raised by a stay at home mother and a bureaucrat father in the largish Country Victorian town of Bendigo. Her parents were reasonably affluent and indulged their three daughters in all the trappings of the middle class suburban life style typical to Australian's of that social standing in the nineteen sixties and seventies. As a youngster Theresa was educated at a series of Catholic girl's schools and when she graduated high school she went on to university to study the arts. She found she had little academic talent, however, and at 19 she dropped out to become a secretary for a local new car outlet before she married Robert, a mid range administrator in the Victorian public service.

The details of the early years of her marriage to Robert are also unremarkable. As with many who marry out of desperation rather than true depth of feeling their relationship was more or less doomed from the start. Though Robert was a very solid and dependable man he was pedestrian in his lovemaking, cool in his emotional makeup and a bore in terms of his social skills. His ambitions were minimal and uninteresting, and all of this would have been okay had he have married a woman closer in character to himself.

Whilst Theresa made it her life's goal to keep up with the local society gossip, likewise, to attend all the local art openings, Robert was content to hold barbecues for his public service friends and spend his Saturday afternoons watching sport at the local stadium.

Theresa's personality was the opposite of that of her tedious husband. She was far from dependable and was prone to outrageous flights of fantasy. She was socially ambitious and saw herself as 'cultured'. She loved the finer things in life and believed herself superior to both her own sisters, and her husband's tribe of sisters and sister in laws - many of whom lived in the vicinity of Ongara. These women from both sides of the family deemed it their right to unload nieces and nephews on Theresa's doorstep at all hours of the day. These same women gossiped incessantly behind her back about her 'uppityness', her 'pretentiousness' and her 'extravagant tastes.' Some of the children had even learnt to mimic Theresa's walk, though they took care to do it behind her back.

This would all be rather tedious to tell, were it not for the very real tragedy that resulted from this altogether familiar tale of self-delusion and provincialism. And I confess that even the first affair hardly rates a mention as an event of real significance given the prevalence of such remedies for marital boredom in contemporary Australia.

Theresa's child Ebony was just three years old when it happened. From a very early age she had been tucked away in an expensive creche for up to twelve hours a day. In the mean time Theresa worked two days a week in a voluntary capacity at the local art gallery and two more as secretary to a doddery old lawyer too much given to the spirits. When Ebony turned three Theresa also began classes in literature at the local campus of a major Melbourne university.

Here she imagined she would finally indulge her passion for culture. She took Short Story classes, she studied French, read Dante and the Christian Fathers, and she leamt a great deal about the Medieval period.

Unfortunately, when all was said and done, she was no more successful in academic terms this time than the last in her youth. Her short stories were deemed bland, sentimental and artificial. She found it difficult writing essays about the classics and each time she sat down at the computer to compose a sentence she found herself distracted by the topics being discussed on one of her favourite talk shows. Other times she found herself longing to phone a friend and gossip about the moral failings of a particular local businessman or counsellor. Nevertheless she loved the mood of the University which offered a welcome respite from her tedious home life with Robert and Ebony.

She eventually took up with Wilfred, a youngish academic whose particular field of interest was the monotheistic religious traditions. Though he never at any stage would have acknowledged their affair publicly, privately he wooed her with his knowledge of the thirteenth and fourteenth century troubadour poets. In their meetings in his office between classes he read her extracts from the great Islamic texts concerned with a man's love for his God, or he quoted Shelly or Yeats to her all the time honing a certain look of boyish vulnerability and charm.

To begin with the secrecy surrounding their forbidden love affair fuelled her imagination and her sexual desires, both in relation to Wilfred and Robert. But the longer the affair went on the more blaise Wilfred became. His eyes wandered to other students and Theresa, conscious of her failing figure and intellectual mediocrity, became jealous and found herself falling victim to the same illness of anorexia bulimia she had suffered in the closing years of her youth. It was about this time that Robert received an invitation to a star-studded ball held in honour of the international guests who flooded to Melbourne every July to attend the Premier's Awards dinner which gave out prizes to people for service to the Victorian people. Robert's department had organised certain of the security arrangements and thus he had scored complementary tickets.

The magic of a night among the stars, the furtive preparations, the joys of choosing beautiful clothes, all of this filled Theresa with a delicious intoxicating sense of self-importance. Finally she was where she belonged, finally she was transcending Ongara with its pettiness and narrow mindedness. She danced with many celebrities that night, and she even met the Victorian premier who had commented on her wonderful dress sense. She went home in a swoon, barely aware of that Robert was sitting a little worse for ware beside her in the same taxi. She imagined a glorious future ahead of her - opening exhibitions, attending races and important charity events. This future seemed all but certain the following week when a picture of her dressed in her ball outfit appeared in one of the major national woman's Magazines.

The day after seeing the article she went to the bank and in one session took out thirty thousand dollars worth of personal loans. Some of these loans Robert knew about, others she kept secret. She simply had to have the car upgraded, and the lounge and dining room needed redecorating, and the gardens needed landscaping, and she must have clothes and jewelry, and a Nanny for Ebony. She was an important woman now, she had appeared in the Social Pages of an important national magazine. Once Wilfred divorced his wife, he and she would tour the world together, he would lecture on Petrarch and Mohammed at major international universities - she would be his tower of strength.

Wilfred, however, showed no signs of leaving his wife. Likewise, as the weeks after the ball marched on nothing much changed in Theresa's life. The lantern of expectation grew dim. The nieces and nephews continued to spill their drinks on the shag pile carpet. Theresa herself continued to work two days a week in a voluntary capacity at the local art gallery and two days a week at the lawyers office. Her husband continued to hold long tedious barbecues where people discussed cars, football, politics and the fetching prices for cattle, pigs and sheep. Likewise, her sisters continued to bitch among themselves about their husbands and bitch behind her back about her pretentiousness. Theresa herself continued to fail or just barely pass units at the university and she continued to binge on cakes and chocolates whenever she felt Wilfred was about to leave her for another woman.

Wilfred didn't deliberately select a different woman to have an affair with every year. It just seemed to work out that way. Indeed it had worked out that way every year for the last seven years. In reality 'select' wasn't quite the word. Wilfred was not a sleazy man. But nevertheless, every year around April a number of the mature age female students would make their intentions known to him and Wilfred, unable to resist, would end up with one of them. He cursed himself for his weaknesses in this area, not the least because on several occasions it had almost cost him his job. Though he loved his work and felt a kind of dull affection for his wife, he found it almost impossible to resist a certain type of female. Damn those feminists! He often said to himself, they have no idea about the emotional complexities that rage between men and women ... they seek to regulate the human heart!

Having been with Theresa on and off for almost a year, he found himself growing tired of her. He dropped her gently, or so he thought, at the close of the academic year.

Theresa, of course, was decimated with the news. How could he spoil their wonderful future together so calmly, so matter of factly? She raged at him. He talked about his wife and children. She abused him. He agreed with her, yes he was a despicable man, but he had to regain some sense of personal pride! He had a weakness to be sure, it was destroying his family life ... his children were teenagers, at a critical age. Theresa vented her jealousy about the younger students, was there someone else? Of course not, she was imagining things. She had it all wrong, there was no other woman but his wife. This was all for his children. He didn't love his wife ... but they must try to work things out ... for the children.

Alone that night, after their final meeting, she collapsed into depression. She resolved not to go back to the university the following year ... she had been such a fool, people would be laughing at her behind her back ... Poor Robert had no idea what was happening to her. He encouraged her to see a doctor. There were pills for these kind of problems 'women's problems' as he called them adopting a certain uncharacteristic mysteriousness in describing his wife's sickness to others in the family. 'It's all that stuff she's been reading ... fuddles the mind if you know what I mean. Totally out of touch with reality. She needs a rest from thinking as much as from anything else.'

As far as Theresa was concerned she needed more clothes. And the car simply wasn't what she'd thought it would be. They simply must attend the opening of the new 'Casino For The Bush' project and the carnival race day and the church fundraisers.

Deep down, however, Theresa was slowly losing grip with reality. She lived more and more in her own fabrications of reality. She began to loath Robert and everything he stood for. She refused point blank to have sex with him and they now slept in separate rooms. She felt differently about Wilfred to. As time went on and she realised that he'd left her for a twenty-five year old brunette she began to hate him and felt a silent rage build inside her. One day soon she'd let h i m have it. 'AI I men are pigs' she proclaimed to her friends and anyone else who would listen.

Robert, as it happened, introduced her to her next lover. A woman of her own age, a blonde haired career woman called Katrina. Katrina was big in the publishing industry she was part of the jet setting class. She'd also interviewed many, many famous people and she was always flying here and there around the world in her time off or as part of her work.

On the night they met Katrina was reporting on the opening of the new 'Casino For The Bush' project. Robert's department had once again scored free tickets and thinking that it might cheer Theresa up he'd accepted two tickets to the celebration dinner.

To begin with the affair with Katrina went slowly. Although Theresa had always had fantasies in that direction she had not acted on them since her school days when an older girl had seduced her on a school camp. Theresa had put the whole experience down to 'teenage exploration' at the time. But deep down it had always made her feel a little uneasy.

Katrina was charming, polite, intelligent and beautiful. She knew everybody and she also knew the body language of the desperate. The night of their first meeting, Theresa found herself telling all her deepest secrets to Katrina, her life was boring, she proclaimed, as the two woman stood clapping the premier's speech of thanks to the business magnate Harrold Tub.

Yes, said Katrina, she understood the daily war many women waged against boredom. She explained her theory about chronic ennui (as she liked to call it) and saw it as an inevitable by-product of patriarchal marriages. Men are pigs, said Theresa. Not all men, said Katrina, taking Theresa's hand in hers. No, really, they simply don't understand the needs of we women! Agreed said Katrina, but again it was up to women, especially the more creative and cultured women to go out there and make a life for themselves. The world is there for the taking, said Katrina, things had changed since the nineteenth century, and most of the shackles these days were mental.

The next day Katrina offered Theresa a job as her personal secretary. Although Robert was doubtful about what the position entailed he was pleased to see Theresa happy again. Within weeks she was jetting off to London to interview a famous pop star. On the same trip she succumbed to Katrina's advances and experienced a series of orgasms unlike any she had ever had with a man. Things were wonderful, she was certain she was in love, she felt liberated, overjoyed, alive for the first time since she'd cheated on Robert with Wilfred. Together the two lovers dined by the Thames. When they flew back to Melbourne after a quick stopover in Paris, Theresa was ready to leave Robert for good. Katrina, however, counselled caution.

Although her income from her secretarial work was significant, it was no where near enough to pay for her burgeoning debts. Upon her return to Australia she still had to visit her local bank manager and plead for extensions on her personal loans. The bank manager threatened to tell Robert, who was after all liable for some of them. She begged him not to. An agreement was struck - the loan could be paid back over a longer period of time but at a higher rate of interest. The high life was proving economically costly. Not much of Theresa's money went to paying off her bills. More importantly for Theresa's mental health, Katrina was changing the rules of their relationship whenever she felt like it. Katrina followed up her earlier counsel of caution in regard to splitting from Robert with a bald statement: 'I don't want our affair to become public knowledge, there is still a lot of anti-gay feeling around you know, and a premature announcement might damage the magazine's standing with segments of its public.' She wasn't ready for that yet, she told Theresa.

After two intense months of sex and meeting famous people, also, of following Katrina everywhere like a baby duck, after three free trips abroad and inter-state Katrina asked Theresa to pay parts of her future airline fees out of her own pocket. The magazine was going through a tough time. She'd have to take some trips alone. Theresa felt desperate. She became jealous of her lover's numerous female friends, university people, artists, media people. From the beginning they'd disliked Theresa's hold over Katrina and she was sure there was a collective will abroad to wreck the relationship.

One of Katrina's ex-lovers, an academic specialising in post modern feminist theory, verbally attacked Theresa one night at yet another all girls party. The talk as usual had turned to politics and Theresa found herself getting inexorably bored. All this talk about affirmative action, equal opportunities, the necessities of unionism, the oppressive nature of cultural codes, sent her to sleep, and besides in between the choice quotes from Derrida, Grosz and Kristeva, Mary, one of Katrina's many ex's, was flirting horribly, obviously intent on renewing the old passion. Theresa felt so jealous she walked into the kitchen and started eating anything she could get her hands on. Before long she had the urge to vomit and was on the way to the toilet when Mary cornered her.

'You won't last long you know,' Mary sneered drunkenly.

'I beg your pardon?'

'You won't last long. You're as shallow as a puddle of water. I don't know what she sees in you. Katrina is intelligent you know, she surrounds herself with idiots, and she interviews lots of them for her magazine, but deep down she's a serious person. You'll be up the road like the rest.'

'Like you?'

'Who says I'm up the road? I've known her for decades. She always comes back to me.'

'Excuse me!' said Theresa and pushed her way past the woman intent on the toilet and a bout of self-induced vomiting.

'She does this every now and then you know!' Mary shouted after her, 'She thinks she can save women like you ... why I'll never know!' Her voice trailed off.

Robert hadn't suspected a thing. And thus when Katrina did indeed end her fling with his wife he had no idea why she was so down. He put it down to a recurrence of her illness and again anti-depressives were the solution of choice. Theresa, however, was almost beyond any kind of solution.

Things only got worse for Theresa after Katrina dropped her. She became increasingly irrational, in part because her economic situation had deteriorated markedly but mostly due to the fact that all of her dreams of love and excitement had again been destroyed. Her six month work contract with Katrina's magazine expired and was not renewed. 'I had hoped you would have written in a more original style,' were the last words that Katrina spoke to Theresa.

Theresa's debts became intolerably large, likewise the guilt and fear associated with keeping the secret about them from Robert and the greater family. Besides these fears there was also the insufferable boredom of home life with Robert. After London, after Paris, after all the famous people there was only Robert to return home to, Robert and poor sad, withdrawn little Ebony. Her husband's appalling devotion, his workmanlike like dedication to the beloved, his slow stupid sexual advances that she always turned down with a stern glance and a not now Robert! Oh, how she hated him, how she hated herself.

The conclusion of this story is of course tragic. There is nevertheless no need for details, we need not make a spectacle of the closing days. Theresa quite simply lost her mind. To that fact alone we can attribute the half-baked murder attempt on her husband. Her loathing, her guilt and shame, her sense of being trapped, her need for ready cash all lead her to attempt to poison him. Robert, however, was nothing if not strong. He survived and, what was worse for Theresa to bear as she nursed him through the long weeks of illness, he never for a moment suspected her, indeed he talked more than ever about his love for her, about how lucky he was to have such a woman. And so as she cradled and soothed his balding head with her hands she planned her own death by overdose. It was carried through on the day the letter from the bank detailing court action against herself and Robert arrived in the mail. Theresa took Ebony to her sister's place.

When she returned around 11am she downed a whole bottle of tranquillisers and calmly went to bed.

When Robert arrived home at 6pm that night he read the letter she'd propped up strategically on the kitchen table. The house was silent.

---

Return to CONTENTS