Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Culture Shock: a journey of self-discovery
Culture Shock: a journey of self-discovery
Culture Shock: a journey of self-discovery
Ebook220 pages3 hours

Culture Shock: a journey of self-discovery

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

()

Read preview

About this ebook

As payback for a neglected and unhappy childhood, fifteen-year-old Helen plans the ultimate humiliation on her 'respectable' middle-class parents by giving birth to an illegitimate baby. After adopting the baby out Helen flees the sterile atmosphere of the family home and embarks on a journey of self-discovery that takes her from the sordid world of drugs and prostitution in Kings Cross to the rugged beauty of Arnhem Land where she finds true love and peace amongst the simple-living Yolgnu tribe.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 1, 2014
ISBN9781310915697
Culture Shock: a journey of self-discovery
Author

Robert Menzies

Robert Menzies is a retired school principal who now lives with Merilyn his wife of forty-two years at Hope Island on Queensland Australia's Gold Coast. Robert has a daughter Jacquie, a son Ben, a daughter-in-law Natasha and two grandchildren William and Isabella.

Read more from Robert Menzies

Related to Culture Shock

Related ebooks

General Fiction For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for Culture Shock

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings

0 ratings0 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

    Book preview

    Culture Shock - Robert Menzies

    Chapter 1

    Jean was going to die soon.

    But before she did, she needed to set the record straight. Firstly, she was not responsible for the terrible mess that Helen had made of her life, despite what people said. She and Harold had high expectations for their daughter. She was an only child, and a clever one at that! They had brought her up to be successful. You couldn’t blame them for that. Her father was a very successful man. They had wanted so much for Helen to become a lawyer. She certainly had the brains and the breeding. But they could never have predicted the terrible trail of destruction that followed her wherever she went, as an adolescent and then as an adult. Her whole life was a disaster.

    So where did it all go wrong?

    As an only child living in a country town in New South Wales, Helen had always been difficult, despite being the brightest child in her class. As real estate agents just beginning their business in a small community on the central coast of NSW, Harold and Jean were very busy people. They didn’t spend a great deal of time with Helen as a child. They had a growing business and a law firm in Sydney to run. But Helen always had a nanny to attend to her every whim, so the responsibility of rearing her was fortunately not their problem. Of course, they were always there if she needed them, but she seldom asked for their advice or assistance.

    It wasn’t until she reached puberty that Helen’s parents noticed something strange about her. She hardly ever spoke, and when she did, it was to put her parents down or question them about everything they did. She seemed to be critical of everything about them. They talked with other parents of teenagers, whose responses were all the same. They would smile knowingly and murmur, ‘She’s just a normal teenager.’

    But Jean knew instinctively that Helen was not developing into a ‘normal’ teenager, whatever that was. Not only was she critical of everything they did and said to her, as her breasts began to develop and her body began to change, she began to develop what Jean would call a very ‘unhealthy’ interest in boys; she displayed a very open, blatant sexual attraction to them, by wearing lewd and seductive clothing and by using gross, sexually explicit language that both shocked and offended her parents. They tried to reason with her, but to no avail. They tried grounding her—she would escape through her bedroom window. They tried taking away her privileges, of which there were many—she would show absolutely no regret or remorse, and in response would just dress and act even more outrageously. She became a source of great embarrassment to her parents, and they were at their wits’ end.

    Their embarrassment was exacerbated by the reputation Helen was gaining around town as being ‘the town bike’. When Jean first heard this expression, she didn’t understand what it meant. When someone explained it to her, she was shocked beyond belief. Her beautiful, intelligent, cultured daughter had developed a reputation for sleeping with every boy in town—and she was not yet sixteen years old! Jean and Helen had many, many emotional and vitriolic arguments that invariably ended in tears and recriminations—from Jean, not Helen. Helen was as cold as ice and seemed to be developing an intense hatred for both her parents. She appeared to show a steely determination to destroy them both with her outrageous behaviour.

    On her sixteenth birthday, Helen dealt her parents the ultimate insult. She announced to them, quite proudly and defiantly, that she was pregnant. She didn’t know who the father was and she was keeping the baby. They implored her to have the pregnancy terminated, but she refused point blank. Jean didn’t believe that her obstinacy was in any way brought about by a maternal need to protect her unborn child; she was convinced Helen was motivated purely and simply by a perverted need to disgrace her parents and to cause them to suffer the ultimate humiliation—having a pregnant sixteen-year-old daughter who didn’t know who the father was!

    They seriously considered sending Helen away to a single parents’ hostel to have her baby in relative anonymity. But she refused to leave. She was having her baby at home, and that was that! They asked her what she intended to do with the baby after it was born, and to their enormous relief she announced that she would be putting it up for adoption. Jean honestly believed it would have been the last straw if she had said she wanted to keep the baby and raise it in their home—they would have thrown her out of their home forever and changed the locks on all the doors!

    Helen’s pregnancy became a source of constant embarrassment for both Jean and Harold. When she began to show, the school principal demanded that she take leave from school and spend her pregnancy at home. The gossipmongers around the town were in a frenzy, and everywhere Harold and Jean went they heard whispering, giggling and snide comments being made behind their backs. Their real estate business was taking a pounding and clients were staying away in droves.

    When the time finally came for Helen’s baby to be born, she chose to give birth in the local hospital. Arrangements had been made in advance for the baby to be taken from her the moment it came into the world, then taken to an adoption agency.

    The birth went well. Helen was in labour for only four hours. Harold and Jean did not visit her in hospital; they just wanted it to be over and done with, then they could try and get on with rebuilding their business. They received a phone call from the hospital notifying them that the birth had gone well, that the baby was a healthy girl, that a representative from the adoption agency had taken her—and that Helen had disappeared!

    ‘Disappeared?’ Jean exclaimed. ‘What do you mean?’

    ‘She simply got up, dressed herself and walked out of the hospital,’ the doctor explained. ‘We’ve notified the police, and they are out looking for her. She is not in a fit state to be wandering the streets.’

    Helen was not found. It was not until two years later that they heard from her again.

    Chapter 2

    Harold’s life was in turmoil.

    Harold had always been a very sharp and incisive thinker. He was able to rationalise Jean’s problems in the cool and impartial way that he gave judgement on others whilst presiding in court.

    Jean was no saint. Nor was he. They had both committed a number of the seven deadly sins in their lives. But as well as making a lot of mistakes in her life, Jean was a very vindictive person. She had made his life a misery. He had never been one to let his emotions get in the way, but all he felt for Jean right now after all these years of marriage was contempt.

    Every once in a while Harold allowed himself a little time of indulgent reflection. When he had first met Jean she was a truly beautiful woman. They had both been university students. He was a member of the First Eleven and a First Grade rugby player; Jean was a high flying intellectual who was attracted to him, she told him later, because of his good looks and his athletic prowess. They were the perfect couple—attractive, intelligent, sporty, and going places. They had great ambitions to become wealthy high flying lawyers, but they also wanted the good life. They married soon after finishing university, and both obtained positions as junior members of law firms in Sydney, both specialising in industrial law. They had no intention of having a family in those days; they just wanted to climb the corporate ladder and join the social set.

    After eight years in Sydney it was becoming apparent to them that they were climbing too slowly. So they decided to speed things up by forming their own legal firm. They would specialise in industrial law and encourage the clients they already had to come across to their new firm, which was to be called Watson and Watson – Corporate Lawyers. The idea was to build the firm up quickly and make a lot of money out of industrial disputes with multinational corporations—that’s where all the money was.

    Right from the outset their business had been successful. They had both worked hard and the money had rolled in. After five years of this hard working, high flying lifestyle, however, they became tired of it and longed for something quieter. They also wanted to have a child. They were both now in their mid-thirties, and soon it would be too late to start a family. Their legal firm was now well established and making pots of money.

    So they made the decision to appoint a director and move to a quiet country town, where they would invest in real estate and enjoy their lives a little. They chose Coffs Harbour, a peaceful little seaside town on the north coast of NSW. The real estate industry was booming along the east coast, so they invested in some prime blocks of land with ocean views, built a palatial home on one of them and prepared themselves for the good life. Jean became pregnant almost immediately. Nine months later, Helen was born.

    It was then that things began to change.

    Helen was a difficult baby, and she cried a lot. Harold noticed very early that Jean would become very impatient with her crying and would often be reduced to tears, or, worse still, would lose her temper and smack Helen, which would just make her cry all the more. So he employed a nanny to take some of the weight off Jean’s shoulders. Before long the nanny seemed to be taking a larger and larger role in Helen’s life, and Jean appeared to be spending less and less time with her.

    Jean suggested to Harold that she return to work at their growing real estate business on a part-time basis. He was happy with this decision for three reasons. Firstly, he missed her keen mind and expertise; secondly, she would save him some money in not having to pay the salary of another salesperson; and thirdly, he was relieved that she was taking herself away from a potentially harmful situation with the baby. The nanny seemed to be doing a good job, and Helen seemed to be becoming very fond of her.

    Before long the inevitable happened. Jean decided to go back to work full-time and leave the nanny to look after Helen. A pattern had been established, and Jean and Harold had reverted to a regime very similar to that they’d had in Sydney. Helen was looked after by a string of nannies, who came and went with monotonous regularity. Her parents spent virtually no time with her, and she grew up a stranger in her own household. Jean spent only minimal time with Helen. Without consciously being aware of it, she had handed over the role of motherhood to an endless procession of nannies, who would become Helen’s surrogate mothers for a few weeks in her life and then leave, never to return.

    Harold was not concerned about the long line of nannies who looked after Helen. On the contrary, he was relieved that Jean was taking an increasingly minimalist role in rearing their daughter. The thing that concerned Harold most was the little accidents that used to happen on the rare occasions Jean was with Helen. Helen would burn her finger on the hot stove; or she would fall out of her high chair; or she would grab glasses from the benches and drop them onto the tiled kitchen floor, smashing them to pieces.

    At first, Harold accepted these incidents as accidents, rationalising that Jean was just not a good mother, that she didn’t take adequate care, that her mind was elsewhere, that she was nervous around a small child, etc. But before long Harold came to suspect that there was something quite sinister about Jean’s relationship with Helen. He couldn’t avoid the feeling that Jean was actually deliberately making these accidents happen. He tried hard to think of a motive for Jean’s strange behaviour. Was it perhaps because she subconsciously wanted to be relieved of all responsibility of being Helen’s mother? Or could it be more sinister—could she possibly be trying to actually hurt Helen? But why would she want to hurt her? It was becoming increasingly obvious to Harold that she didn’t like Helen; but to dislike her enough to hurt her? The thought was very disturbing for Harold, and it threatened to distract his attention from their growing real estate business and law firm, so he tried to shut it out of his mind. But still it lingered, like a hungry lion lurking in the shadows …

    On a couple of occasions he tried, unsuccessfully, to talk to Jean about her feelings for Helen. But whenever he broached the subject she would react very defensively, criticising him for his lack of understanding, and claiming that he was the one who didn’t show Helen any love. She said she was just trying to patch up the cracks left by his coldness and lack of interest. The painful truth was that, in some ways, she was right. Harold had never been able to become very fond of Helen, right from the moment she was born. He had secretly thought she was an ugly baby, and he couldn’t cope with her incessant crying. He found the thought of having to change her dirty nappies quite repugnant. And even as Helen grew from a baby into a little girl, he still couldn’t bring himself to like her. So he immersed himself in his work and left the rearing of Helen to the nannies, with minimal involvement from Jean.

    Nevertheless, this didn’t change his increasing concern that Jean would deliberately do something to actually hurt Helen.

    And then it happened.

    Chapter 3

    Nicky, the latest new nanny, had asked for the night off to go to a rock concert, so Jean was left to look after Helen, who was now eight years old and quite capable of looking after herself. Harold worked late, as usual, preferring to stay at the office rather than come home to face the friction and unease that always existed when Jean was alone with Helen. His office phone rang at about seven pm.

    ‘Harold, you’d better get home. There’s been an accident.’ It was Jean’s voice, sounding strangely calm.

    ‘What’s happened?’ he asked urgently. ‘Is it Helen?’

    ‘She’s cut herself quite badly. I’ve rung the ambulance. I’ve bandaged the wound but it’s still bleeding. She’s stopped crying now.’

    ‘Are you okay?’

    ‘Of course I’m okay! Shouldn’t you be asking if Helen is all right?’

    ‘Is Helen okay?’ Harold asked meekly.

    ‘Thank you for asking, dear. No, she is not okay, as it happens. She’s rather badly injured. Get yourself moving and get to the hospital. The ambulance has just arrived!’

    Harold put the phone down gingerly, again feeling there was a hidden agenda behind all this but still not certain what is was. Perhaps he would find out at the hospital.

    Upon arriving at the hospital he was met by Jean in the foyer. She appeared very cool.

    ‘They’ve taken Helen into Emergency,’ she explained. ‘She’ll need stitches, but they tell me she’ll be okay.’

    ‘How did it happen?’ Harold asked.

    ‘She was helping me prepare the vegetables for dinner, when the phone rang. I went to answer it, and while I was away the knife must’ve slipped and put a deep cut in her left arm. When I heard her scream I slammed the phone down and rushed into the kitchen to see her literally covered with blood. It was a terrible shock. I wrapped a bandage around it tightly and stopped most of the bleeding, then rang the ambulance. She stopped crying after I cleaned up all the blood.’

    ‘You seem remarkably calm,’ Harold ventured, watching carefully for his wife’s reaction.

    Jean glared at him coldly. ‘And what is that supposed to suggest?’ she demanded angrily.

    ‘Nothing at all. I was trying to compliment you on your calmness and peace of mind.’ The look he got from her did not in any way convey that she believed him.

    After a short time they were allowed to go in and be with Helen. The doctor had put her under general anaesthetic to put the stitches in her arm—fourteen stitches in all. She was sleeping peacefully, the only evidence of any mishap being a bandage covering the wound. They waited until she came out of the anaesthetic. She opened her eyes and smiled weakly at them. Harold felt a flash of love for his daughter at that moment, but the feeling quickly left him.

    They were permitted to take her home, where, for the first time in five months, all three of them were alone together, with no nanny to tend to Helen’s needs. But it was not a happy family scene. Tension was running high, and Jean

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1