All Balls and Glitter (15 page)

My stage attire usually consisted of a G-string and a few feathers, with a blue fish on my head for additional extravagance. In other routines, I dressed as an Egyptian and pranced behind a real camel, which would poo all over the stage. The Lido doesn’t use camels any more, they have a horse instead, but we performed alongside llamas and camels. You know you’ve made it when you’re dancing with a camel, wearing a fake palm leaf and a fez. That was the high point of my career – dodging camel dung! How tragic!

In the past, I’d usually tried to conceal my diets from my friends and family, but in Paris, there was little point because I was constantly on the Scarsdale. With my unforgiving G-string costume, there was nowhere to hide. My body was on show the whole time, so my obsession with body fat became even more intense. There wasn’t a day I didn’t get out of bed and go straight to the mirror to make sure that I hadn’t put on any weight overnight.

My time in that city was a curious existence, which I dubbed ‘Lido Land’ because it was not at all like the real world. You slept during the day and worked at night, finishing the show at about two in the morning and then going out for a meal afterwards. So dinner was at 3 a.m., you went to bed at 5 a.m. and started your day at two in the afternoon. The only people you were with, all the time, were other members of the company, except on your days off – because the show had to go up seven days a week, you couldn’t take time off at the same time as anybody else. The nature of the schedule was so peculiar, however, that you never had the opportunity to make friends outside of the Lido. Therefore, your days off were always spent alone. On the days I wasn’t performing, I would go to a museum or wander round the city. It was a very weird way of life.

During the run, I fell for a guy called Paul, who was nicknamed Pooh. He was gorgeous – oh, but he was a calamity on stage. He was always sliding off the stage on to people’s tables, or injuring himself, or falling down the stairs or involved in some other catastrophe. In one performance, he fell backwards into the waterfall.

Needless to say, he’s no longer a dancer and in fact has had a varied career. Nowadays he manages a Homebase store in Wales.

When I met Paul, I was still in a relationship with Mark; I was supposed to be going back to him in Australia when my contract was up at the Lido. Given the potency of my attraction to Paul, though, I sensed it was over for good with Mark. Somewhat deplorably, I was too confused and cowardly to tell him. Instead, I finished my fling with Pooh just before Mark came over for a visit. I decided I should give our relationship another chance.

We went on holiday to Italy. It was October 1988, and I’d been away for four months, so I was looking forward to spending time with him. However, seeing him again just made me realize that I had no choice but to move on. I knew I had to break it off.

It was awful trying to choose the right moment. I finally plucked up the courage and said, ‘Look, I think I want to stay in Europe, because I really like it here.’ I knew it wasn’t fair to cheat or lie and I felt dreadful about it, but I couldn’t tell him about Paul. It was a lovely day and we were sitting around a fountain in a beautiful square in Florence. I can’t think of a more romantic place to dump someone.

Our relationship had been a very strong one. We’d been together for nearly three years and we really did love one another. He was a wonderful support to me as well, but, at that time, I simply couldn’t be with him. I needed to grow up. I wanted to live an alternative life to the one that I’d had in Australia. I couldn’t go back to that same existence; I wanted to push myself forward, in a different direction.

Afterwards, I felt too guilty to hook up with Pooh again, but it didn’t take me long to fall in love with someone else. Mr America, as I shall call him, was another guy I danced with at the Lido. I was totally besotted. I thought he was too, so I moved in with him. We lived in a minuscule flat, with the tiniest bath you’ve ever seen, but I was very happy there.

Mr America spoke Spanish – consequently, he loved weekends away in Spain. He took me to Barcelona and Madrid, where I was inducted into the cultural tradition of bullfighting. The first time I saw the kill, I felt physically sick – but then, a strange thing happens, and you get used to it. The next thing you know, you’re shouting for the matadors to finish off the job, which is horrible.

The two of us were attacked ourselves one night in Paris. We were part of a group that had just finished work at the Lido, and were waiting for a taxi with Magatha and Olive on the Champs-Elysées. A big car pulled up at the traffic lights and someone shouted something at us. Magatha said something back in French, which I didn’t understand. Suddenly, seven Arab men got out of the car and laid into us all. Thankfully, Olive had managed
to run off. Mr America was fighting with one of the men (that sounds ridiculously superhero-esque with his pseudonym, doesn’t it?) and another was coming at me, while I was just standing there like a lemon, holding everyone’s bags. I looked round for Magatha … only to see him on the floor, being kicked in the gutter.

The next thing I knew, Mr America’s shirt had been completely ripped off him and he was grappling with his attacker. The guy who was headed in my direction was just about to hit me when a security man, carrying a gun, turned up from out of the blue.

Unbelievably, all this happened before the lights changed and, as the guard came over to break it up, the lights turned to green and our assailants piled into their car and sped off.

The security man asked us if we were all right and then went on his way. Magatha got the worst of it and had been badly bashed up, but not seriously hurt, thank goodness. We were all so shaken by the incident that we decided to go for a drink, so the three of us ended up in a nightclub and I lit up a fag. I had arrived in Paris as a non-smoker, having given up for over a year, but that horrendous night shattered my nerves and sent me straight back to the weed.

Sadly, I didn’t stop at the one, and for the rest of my time in France I smoked daily. The natives, of course, smoked all the time, so it was difficult to stay off the cigarettes anyway. Every
tabac
was fume-filled and although I could handle it for a while, that episode tipped me over the edge.

After I started smoking again in Paris, I continued on and off ever after, though I’ve tried to give up on numerous occasions since. I read Allen Carr’s book and stopped for about two-and-a-half years, then I had one at a party, after a few drinks, which was stupid. I most recently gave up in October 2007 – yet again. So far, so good.

On 9 January 1989, I received news from Australia that proved even more distressing than the physical assault we’d suffered. The drink, I learned, had almost driven Dad to murder.

I was thousands of miles away from home and had to hear about the violence second hand. As I was on the other side of the world when it all kicked off, I’ve asked Sue to tell you in her own words about what happened on that awful day:

I was six months pregnant with my first daughter Isabelle when my husband David and I took a holiday back home to Ballarat from Sweden. We had been in Sweden for a year and the company allowed us a trip home in the middle of our contract to catch up with family and friends. Our visit was almost over.

The day before we left, a family gathering was planned as it happened to be my father’s birthday and our first wedding anniversary combined. As a special treat, David and I bought ourselves an antique bed, but any other romantic ideas we may have had diminished as the day’s events unfolded.

My father has been an alcoholic from as far back as I can remember and I fully expected the situation to be the same as ever, but this time things were different. Dad had spent the days leading up to his birthday getting drunker than usual and even more inappropriate in his behaviour.

He would rage about the house in violent outbursts, yelling and screaming at anyone in earshot. He had a glazed look in his eyes as if nothing and nobody were being registered. I had hated him in the past, but he had never terrified me. This time, I was petrified. He was aggressive and unpredictable and seemed to be focused on abusing and hurting Mum. Trent and Mel were young and still living at home; I feared for their safety as well as Mum’s. I knew Dad had a gun in the house and I was worried that he might take it out and use it.

Although I was booked to return to Sweden the very next day – and my pregnancy was so far along that I had to go back sooner rather than later or I wouldn’t be allowed to fly – I couldn’t leave without knowing that Mum, Mel and Trent
would be OK. On the morning of 9 January, after Dad had had a particularly drunken night, I convinced Mum to visit the police station and talk to a policewoman about his behaviour and find out how they could protect themselves. The conversation was a difficult one because we had never before let another person, let alone an external authority, into the secret of the abuse in our lives. It made the situation real for the first time.

The policewoman talked about restraining orders. She also asked us if there were any firearms in the house. When we replied that there were, she told us that, as soon as we returned home, it was vital that we separate the bullets from the guns.

Mum, defensive at the implicit suggestion, interjected, ‘There is no way he would ever do that! He would never bring out the gun. He isn’t
that
bad.’

We had taken separate cars to the police station. Mum decided to drive straight home to get on with her preparations for Dad’s birthday, while I shopped for a few things to pack before the journey back to Sweden. I told Mum that as soon as she got home, she
must
do the ‘gun thing’. She said, ‘OK,’ but there was no urgency in her tone. I truly don’t think she believed there was any risk.

I finished my shopping and pulled into Ditchfield Road. There was a crowd of people in the street, standing outside the front of the house. I parked the car and could see Mum standing next to our neighbour, Julie.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

Mum told me that Dad was on another rampage. He had thrown a perfectly cooked roast dinner out of the kitchen window into the garden. They were all scared and didn’t know what to do. I asked Mum if she had done what the police had told us to and she said that she hadn’t had time.

As we spoke, a family friend, Corinne, ran up the driveway, screaming, ‘He’s got a gun!’

The whole street cleared and scrambled in all directions. Luckily, my sixteen-year-old sister Melanie was at a friend’s place down the road, safe and sound, but my eleven-year-old brother Trent was with us. I had no idea where my husband David was.

People were running in all directions. Mum, Trent and I headed for Julie’s house across the road. We ran through her back door, down the hallway and into the bathroom. It’s interesting what goes through your mind at a time like that, but all I could think was: ‘I don’t want us to be splattered over the tiled walls of this bathroom. There is nowhere to go. Nowhere to escape.’

I took the lead and directed everyone to spread out around the house. We were under beds, in cupboards, beneath desks. I threw Mum and Trent under the beds in someone’s bedroom and I got under one in there too. I just lay there and listened. Mum was hysterical at this point, screaming, ‘Susan, your baby, you might lose the baby.’ I assured her that I felt tough and healthy and would be fine.

Then some of Julie’s boys ran into the house. They yelled out that they had heard gunfire – and that David had been shot.

Strangely, nothing they said made me panic. I didn’t
feel
it – so I firmly believed it hadn’t happened.

After lying there briefly, I decided to call the police. I crawled out from under the bed and, on my hands and knees, picked up the wall-mounted phone in Julie’s kitchen, keeping a firm eye on the window that Dad would have to walk past if he were to come into the house. I didn’t know where he was, so I kept low.

At that point, one of the boys told me that David was OK after all and had led Dad away from Julie’s house. That was a huge relief. I made the call to the police. Emergency 000. I told them that a man was in the neighbourhood with a gun. They said they would send a team as soon as possible.

I went back to my hideout under the bed. Mum was still overwrought. Trent joined Julie’s sons in their quest to find out what was happening and promised to bring back reports. I felt strong and didn’t feel any threat to the baby. I told Mum she had to keep quiet or he might hear her and kill us all.

It seemed to take forever for the police to arrive. Apparently, the SWAT teams had had to meet at the top of the hill and put on their bulletproof vests. When I heard sirens, I finally ventured out from under the bed. Peering through the window, I saw Dad wearing his daggy old pyjamas – and a pink windcheater with ‘
Sugar Babies’
emblazoned across it (a show in which Craig had once performed). He was getting into the back of the police van. David was there too, thankfully unhurt. Nobody had been physically injured, but it could so easily have ended in tragedy.

David told me later that, as he was aware the guns were in the house, he was keeping a close eye on Dad. That morning, after Dad’s outburst over the roast dinner, he saw him collect the guns from their storage place and take them to the garage. He told Corinne to warn us that Dad had the guns; this is when we all ran for our lives. What Dad’s intentions were, no one knows. My father has told me that he had an alcoholic blackout on that day and has no recollection of the incident. Apparently, such blackouts can happen after a person has consumed a certain amount of alcohol; although they are conscious at the time, they have no memory of what has occurred.

During the drama, David had checked to see if we were all safe, and then gone back to find out what Dad was doing. While my father wasn’t looking, David grabbed the shotgun from the garage and ran down the garden with it. He didn’t realize that Dad also had a .22 rifle, which he lifted, aimed and fired over David’s head.