Kath Lockett - The Invisible Woman: From a full life and career in Australia to a lonely, unemployable housewife in Geneva, where was the new exciting phase of life that she was looking for?

THREE DAYS AGO

Im fifty years old spending my first night at a police station in Switzerland. Geneva, the revered establishment of the Geneva Convention.

In the years immediately following the Second World War, the Geneva Convention explicitly set out rights for all prisoners of war, including civilians. But I havent been in a battle, nor am I ship wrecked or an innocent civilian trapped in a war-zone. Whatever the case, my current physical and emotional state could be very loosely applied to the wounded or sick description, but the policeman on night duty doesnt speak much English and my French is too poor to try and start that particular discussion.

He doesnt seem too concerned that I might make a run for it, as Im seated on a long bench in their front office. Perhaps the fascinating range of characters that come and go are reason enough for him to assume that Ill stay seated. Hes right.

The long wooden bench is uncomfortably narrow for my bulky backside and rather hard, yet the burble of French being spoken around me and my inability to comprehend it means Im stuck in a narrow tunnel of my own making. There is plenty of time to think back to what led me here.

***

Ive always been a bit of Rainman when it comes to cars. Its a mystery to me, because my family were never rev-heads or car snobs, but when a car passes by it only takes a quick glance at the shape of the body and I can tell you what company made it.

There arent any car magazines in my house nor websites eagerly devoured online about cars, so maybe it is the advertising cluttering up the news websites and social media pages I regularly click on that has enabled this unwanted ability. Article adjacent, these video clips and texts about new year models arriving in showrooms soon must be able to subconsciously worm their way into my brain, adding to the flotsam and jetsam of information only useful if seated in a pub as part of a quiz team.

In Australia, car-spotting skills were not a particularly rewarding or interesting ability to have. If you didnt drive a rusting model that was well into its second decade, then you were well off. If you had a large utility, you were a blue-collar worker. If you had a four-wheel drive outside of a city you were a farmer. Inside the city, you were an earnest inner-city mother dropping her kids off at school and the subject of contempt by smaller cars unable to see from behind them. European cars that were considered basic models in that continent stood out in Melbourne: their import and tax costs elevated their prices to posh car levels.

Water restrictions also meant that the 1960s Sunday afternoon stereotype of dad washing the car using a hose in the driveway was not only frowned upon, but often forbidden. Dusty cars symbolised adherence to the rules, the noticeable impacts of climate change and being a bloody good Aussie.

But here in Switzerland, automatic car washing machines, valet cleaning services and drive-through vehicle showers are at every petrol station. As for the cars themselves, the European models are naturally more common. Those makes considered posh in Melbourne are merely the basic types here. The Renault Clio, Peugeot 208, Volkswagen Polo. Crossing the Rhone River on Mont Blanc bridge with the enormous arc of water known as the Jet dEau in Lake Leman dominating the skyline, these common cars are driven by students, nurses and school teachers heading into the city to study or work. Yet these cars are the minority of those seen gliding throughout Geneva and its surrounds.

Watching from my seat on the bus, the most common cars here are the luxury models. Idling at the traffic lights are well-dressed drivers sitting in Audis, BMWs, Mercedes, Porsches, Jaguars and Bentleys. Women seem to favour a tasteful yet silvery paint job whereas males go for black. Always gleaming, always spotless and always very, very new.

Its no surprise to anyone that Geneva is making a very comfortable life for itself from luxury watch making, private banking, international property investments, commodity trading, pharmaceuticals, tobacco, cosmetics, CERN and celebrities enjoying tax breaks.

Amongst the city and lakeside frontage that encouraged Rolex, Patek Philippe, Piaget, Nestle, LOreal, Japan Tobacco International and the Rothschild Group, even Vladimir Lenin enjoyed a stay in a rented chalet during his exile in 1901.

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in a villa by Lac Leman in 1816. Her future husband, the young poet Lord Byron, rather selfishly carved his name into the stone dungeons under Chateau Chillon, and Charlie Chaplin chose to spend the last twenty five years of his life here. Throw in further famous expats including Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Vladimir Nabokov, Freddy Mercury, Phil Collins, Michael Schumacher and recent arrival Robbie Williams and the cantonal area of Geneva becomes a very rich space indeed.

Interspersed with this wealth is the United Nations. You probably have a mental image of a 1940s style cream coloured building with a short promenade lined each side by flags from all participating nations around the world. In movies, it flashes up briefly when the President of the USA or Rambo or some intergalactic hero tries to make contact with the good guys and save the planet.

Originally created as the League of Nations following World War I, we humans didnt learn a damn thing from the war to end all wars, and thus the need to develop lasting peace (the UNs words, not mind), led to establishing the United Nations after the depravity and losses incurred during World War II. They tell us that they run a global effort which continues to work for sustainable peace, inclusive development, global health and prosperity for all, which sounds very worthy and noble.

With all this in mind, it strikes me as a tad ungenerous that Geneva does not have any sister cities anywhere else in the world. Instead, it says that it is related to the entire world which is rather puzzling when it is so difficult to get permission to live here. I am tolerated -and allowed to live here because I have the Carte de Legitimation . Im legitimate because my husband works for the UN. Without him, I would not be.

This sister city to the Entire World has around 200,000 residents in the metropolitan area, and over 900,000 in the wider Canton of Geneva, covering much of the lake frontage that has not been claimed by France. It is the centre of French-speaking Switzerland. Ticino leads the Italian-speakers and Zurich the Germans. While then-CIA agent and future whistle-blower Edward Snowden spent a couple of years here from 2007 to 2009, about one third of people whose careers and incomes depend on Geneva live across the border in France.

That one third are the students, nurses and educators who are employed in Geneva but can not afford the crippling rents to actually live there. They travel en-masse from Annecy, Ferney-Voltaire and Annemasse, clogging up the already overwhelmed highway system and wasting hours of their lives riding the clutch and inhaling petrol fumes as they slowly inch their way home.

The luxury cars are not just owned and driven by bankers, traders, celebrities and watch-makers. They are driven by UN staff.

There are over one hundred international organisations in Geneva with 180 countries participating. Throw in another four hundred non-government organisations (NGOs), the collective aim is to contribute towards and Ill use their words again Financing; Peace and Mediation; Disarmament; Gender Equality; Fostering partnerships with key stakeholders; Environmental Sustainability, Accessibility of Conference Services and Fostering dialogue with civil society .

They also manage to keep a straight face despite throwing in some guff about leveraging the Geneva Ecosystem to support SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) implementation , which may mean that they may offer very generous tax rates to large global corporations to set up their offices here but do expect some significant donations to the UN in return. Or something like that.