Carson Donna - Judas Kisses: A True Story of Betrayal and Survival

Almost everyone seemed to be off with someone elses husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend in Geurie. At first Id been too naive to notice, but after spending some time in this Venus flytrap of a town, I realised that affairs were practically a part of daily life. After ten years of loyalty to Brian enduring his drinking, his irresponsibility and his parents I longed to be loved, nurtured and appreciated, and so I too became entangled in a secret relationship of my own. My euphoria was short-lived though when the object of my affection broke the news to me that hed found someone else.

Needing to confide in someone, I poured out my heart in a letter to my old friend Deb, who was still living the single life in the picturesque village of Kurrajong on Sydneys outskirts.

... I knew it wouldnt come to anything, but I still feelused and let down. It was such a good feeling to beattractive and adored by someone. At least it gave mydull life a bit of sparkle...

I vowed that my self-destructive need for love must cease and resigned myself to making the best of my marriage to Brian. But no sooner had I resolved to make amends than I met someone who would change my life forever.

It was 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing and the Exxon Valdez oil spill off the Alaskan coast. For me though, tucked away in a sleepy town on the other side of the globe, little had changed. Brian continued to drink while I concentrated on raising our son, running the house and working full time.

Deb had married. Brians parents had left Geurie and were now living on the New South Walesmid-north coast, just up the road from Denises mother and father. My mum had moved to the coast too, and was living in Laurieton with her doting new husband, Clyde. Dad had married a charming Indonesian woman named Bea. My sister Kathryn and her husband John had had a second child, Patrick, and had settled on a small property outside Wingham, unwittingly close to Mr and Mrs Blakemore.

On this particular day, Brian, Coe and I had been invited to a casual evening barbecue across the road at the Fords, our neighbours. The Ford family was an important part of my growing social network and I counted Yvonne Ford as one of my dearest neighbourhood friends. This Aussie battler with her craggy face and unruly mop of dark hair always seemed to have a knot of little ones around her wherever she went, usually her grandchildren or some of the neighbourhood kids she minded on a casual basis, including Coe. Her husband, Colin, worked at the Grain Elevator Board and they struggled financially their home was a mishmash of secondhand furniture, mismatched crockery, threadbare floor coverings and crooked additions but Yvonne kept the place spotless and the yard well maintained, and she was a warm and generous host.

I was especially close to one of Yvonnes daughters, Sue. I was at the birth of Sues little girl, Kristy, and subsequently became her godmother. When Sue was given a housing commission place in Geurie, I helped her turn it into a home. Together we scrubbed and painted rooms, searched out secondhand dealers for cheap furniture, sewed curtains and weeded garden beds. Soon after, Sue met Adrian. She said he was good to her. After all, hed drive her around and sit in the car and wait for her while she cleaned peoples bins for a small fee. How chivalrous, Id say, tongue firmly in cheek.

Sometimes when Yvonne and I took Coe and the other kids to the river for a picnic and a swim, wed find Sue waiting for Adrian on the grass bank like a faithful dog, stranded with little Kristy and then later Elizabeth and Dean as well. Adrian and his mates would be off fishing in the boat. Sues social network had dwindled since shed met Adrian, but I refused to disappear from her life even though I suspected Adrian resented me for hanging around his woman.

Brian, Coe and I arrived at the Fords at around four in the afternoon. Brian was ahead of me in his trackpants and sweatshirt with his precious carton of stubbies, lumbering across the neatly mown grass, past the yellowing geraniums in cement tubs, the green plastic whiz bin and the empty paddling pool abandoned from the previous summer. I trailed behind with an esky of meat, salad vegetables and wine as U2s Desire belted out from a portable cassette player.

The backyard was full of the sprawling Ford clan. They were a casual lot, an extended family with its share of hard-drinking, volatile men whod give you the shirt off their back one minute and have you shaking in your shoes the next, depending on how much alcohol they had under their belt.

The Ford daughters, Sue and Sandra, were bringing wood over for the barbecue and clowning around in time to the music. I was struck by how much they looked like younger versions of their mother, with the same tangles of dark brown hair, the same worn faces, the same baggy Tshirts and stretch pants, and the same vaguely vulnerable look, although Sandra was no pushover.

Adrian was nursing Kristy, and gave me a curt nod from his battered easychair as I heaved the esky around the corner. He looked like a sulky bandicoot with his long nose, mousy brown hair and pouting lips. Mark Clynes stood up when he saw me though and immediately came to help. Like a dark, wiry pirate, he wore silver earrings: double loops hanging rakishly from his right earlobe. He grinned at me. He was charming but, like his partner Sandra, reputed to be stroppy at times.

Here, Donna, give that to me, he said, tugging the plastic esky from my grasp.

I let him take it, rubbing the palm of my reddened hand on the side of my jeans. Thanks, mate. Bris loaded up with the beer. I rolled my eyes. Coe, now a big, fair-haired boy of seven, ran past me with a fist full of potato chips. I called him over. I hope you asked before you helped yourself, I said quietly, squatting down to put my arm around him.

Yeah, Mum, he said with a gappy grin. Yvonne said I could.

Yvonne, Coes beloved surrogate nanna, came over with a glass of wine for me in one hand and a stubby for herself in the other. Hes okay, Don. You know he always does the right thing. That kids got the best manners in town. She lowered herself down onto a folding chair and lit up a rollie.

I sat down next to her and took a sip of my wine. Thats what comes of having a schoolteacher for a mother. Poor child.

You know Garry, dont you, Don? She nodded towards a young bloke in a red and black checked flanno, tight black jeans and black motorbike boots sitting next to her. Marks brother.

Id first met Garry months before, when hed blown into the Mitchell Inn one night looking for Mark. A young traveller in worn jeans and basketball boots, with a swag over one shoulder, hed paused in the doorway to scan the bar. The locals had stared back in silence. Strange males were not usually welcome on their turf.

Hed looked familiar and, feeling sorry for him, I called out from my seat near the door. Youd have to be a Clynes. You look so like Mark. I know hes got a heap of brothers.

He smiled in relief and as he stepped closer to my table, the resemblance was even more striking: both had the same full lower lip and wide grin, although, unlike Marks chocolate-coloured eyes, Garrys were a clear light blue and his hair was shorter, a mass of curls that framed his face. His cheeks bunched up like small pink plums and I noticed he had dimples.

G-g-g-good guess, hed said, blushing. G-g-g-Garrys my name.

The last thing Id expected was for this attractive young guy to have a stutter. Id tried not to react, but had felt an immediate pang of sympathy, as though he were some poor stammering kid in my kinder class whod needed immediate remedial input.

If youre looking for Mark, hes just nipped out the back for a moment. Id told him, nodding towards the Gents. At least hed have his older brother for moral support.