Open Writing

As I struggle onwards with the plotting of my fictional novel – changing and rearranging the characters’ foibles and background settings all the while – I am constantly wondering if each scenario actually could, or would, happen.

Then I consider past events of my own life and think they would make a great work of fiction. However, I am sure many would read this ‘novel’ and say, “What a great imagination Angela Townsend has, although the plot is a little farfetched – this could never happen to one person in her first twenty-five years”.

Alright, so I was a fisherman’s teen bride and mum of three by twenty-two, a homeowner at sixteen and commercial pilot by twenty-four.

Before I became part of the ‘family’ – the Harvey family of Coromandel – I was warned, “they are a bad lot – stay away from them’. Okay, so they weren’t exactly a conventional family. The father was onto his third marriage and had fathered approximately eighteen children, ranging in age from about forty to seventeen. As soon as they were old enough, the children of his first marriage left and never came back.

The children of his second marriage were mainly boys and most had followed in their father’s footsteps, becoming fishermen. The third marriage had produced one son, barely two months younger than another son from the previous marriage.

The patriarch ruled his empire with an iron fist and foul temper, dictating when his six fishermen sons could and could not go fishing. The ‘boys’ had initially done well under this style of discipline, each having bought their own fishing boats, married young and purchased homes, however, the control over their lives became increasingly frustrating.

Their father, in retirement, bought himself a truck and transported the fish to Auckland – about three hours away – from where he would return with wads of cash to be handed out. My husband was one of his favourite sons as he was not as wilful as the others. He was not into drinking, smoking or partying and was easier to control, so he got on okay with his father as long as he did what he was told.

Thursday was the only full day off, although there was fish to unload, and we would all make the one-hour drive to Thames, a town back down the coast, to stock up on groceries and do the banking. Friday was spent preparing for the weekend which were fishing days, while Monday had the same routine – fill the hold with ice and spend hours cutting freezing bait and baiting thousands of hooks on the long-lines. Tuesday and Wednesday saw the ‘boys’ out on the briny again.

It was a lonely life for us young wives although we banded together in a fairly tight, exclusive relationship. I was the mother of three before the age of twenty-two, and the Thames Hospital was kept busy with the births of many Harvey babies throughout the 1980s. My youngest, Melissa, was the last to be born from our group, in 1990.

Large families are not without their tragedies. My sister-in-law and best friend Trish lost her four-year-old daughter off the Coromandel wharf in 1989. I was there at the time with my children and this loss has affected me in a way I can’t begin to describe.

One moment Michelle was there with the others, then a child hooked a seagull on his fishing line, then she was gone. Her body was not discovered for twenty-four hours and had drifted several kilometres across the bay in the changing tidal currents.

My friend is of Maori descent and the tradition is for family to come out of the woodwork from miles away and practically move into your home. This is exactly what happened to Trish, who just wanted to be left alone. I don’t know whether it helped or hindered the whole process of acceptance and grieving, but I can remember holding her sobbing in her bedroom while she begged me to tell them all to go. It was an extremely difficult time for her and her husband – they still had four young children to care for.

The year of ’89 was a bad one. My former flight instructor, Kirsty, was killed in an accident at Auckland Airport on the last day of July. She was twenty-eight.

The ‘family’ had more problems in 1990 when the youngest sister, still living at home, claimed their father had abused her as a child. The brothers called a conference and heard yet more accusations from other family members.

Within days, the sons had disassociated themselves from their father, bought their own fishing truck and tried to carry on as normally as they could. It was hard on all of us – Coromandel is a small town – and we had to endure threats and icy stares from their intimidating father on an almost daily basis.

One of the ‘boys’ killed himself in 1991. It was known he and his wife had been experiencing marital problems but the thought of suicide never occurred to any of us. My husband and I got a call from my father one weekend telling us to get back to Coromandel as soon as we could. It was then that we discovered Peter had left his three young daughters sleeping and driven into the hills where he connected a pipe from the car exhaust to the window. At the time of the funeral, his wife was shunned by the family. In retrospect, it was cruel to lay the blame squarely on her shoulders.

Only one Harvey marriage survived the rigours of everyday life in the ‘family’ – and it wasn’t mine. No-one was to blame, we were just too young. I grew emotionally, intellectually and spiritually - my former husband did not.

Now I find myself on another adventure in Saudi Arabia with my new husband, feeling perfectly safe and comfortable living here – until last Thursday.

The security staff had suddenly doubled and moved the check point back further from our housing compound. They were not allowing visitors’ cars in as they had previously. When my husband asked why the guard said there had been reliable intelligence citing an imminent attack on our compound.

As I am still here writing this column, it is obvious nothing happened and things have returned to normal. But I have to admit I have never been happier to be flying home for the New Year as I am tonight.