Born at the Right Time

by Ron McCallum

  On another occasion she looked at my clothes line and said, ‘Why did you string it up so high? How do you expect a woman to hang nappies on that line?’ I simply replied that I had set the line to my height and hadn’t thought any more about it.

  I often stroked Mary’s face. Within a few days of our courtship, Mary said, ‘Darling, could I please cut your nails?’ I was a little surprised, because at that stage I had graduated to using a pair of nail clippers. However, it was often the case that my cutting was a little ragged.

  One evening after Mary left, I got into my pyjamas and went into the bathroom to clean my teeth. I picked up what I thought was my tube of toothpaste. When the substance was in my mouth, I discovered it was in fact hand cream that Mary had left on the vanity unit.

  There was just so much to learn. I had to open up, physically and emotionally, as we began sharing our lives together. Some of the ghosts of my early family life, the ghosts of domestic violence, had to be banished forever. Mary was extremely patient. It took a little while for me to be comfortable with Mary touching me, but she soon enabled me to relax and my attraction to her became even stronger.

  Like most couples intending to marry, we both wished for children. The cause of my blindness meant that I had no genetic issues to confront. Therefore, Mary and I did not have to deal with the tricky issue of inherited blindness. I was almost thirty-seven when I asked Mary to marry me and, given my age, I didn’t want to wait for too long before trying for children. At this early stage, Mary and I agreed that this was a matter best worked out after we had tied the nuptial knot.

  When we met, Mary was what I playfully described as a ‘Capital-C Catholic’. I had been brought up as a cultural Catholic, but in my twenties I sort of drifted away. I recommenced going to Mass with Mary, at St Carthage’s, which is close to Melbourne University. I found that it was easier to fit in as one of a couple than when I was single.

  This discovery went beyond church communities. I found that my engagement and then our marriage led to a subtle change in the way many people viewed me. Suddenly, I had lost the status of an outsider and had moved into mainstream Australia as a typical guy.

  10

  Marriage

  Equality has been one of my hallmark attitudes: equality between women and men, and between persons with disabilities and all other people. Therefore, I didn’t want a wife who would just look after me and on occasion be my research assistant.

  During our engagement, it became clear to me that Mary was a gifted lawyer who would make a truly superb legal academic. She already had the beginnings of a fine career. One year out from graduating, she had a full-length article published in the University of Melbourne Law Review that had quickly made its way into a major constitutional law casebook. She was enrolled in a Master of Laws degree at the University of Melbourne on the general topic of migration law. I formed the view that she would not be happy simply staying home and washing underwear. It was important to us both to establish independent vocations.

  Having said this, Mary did lack a little confidence. Given she was only twenty-six, that was perhaps understandable, but nonetheless surprising in my eyes. One thing I could do for Mary was to always be there to support her. I suggested she consider building an academic career teaching law, which would involve converting her master’s degree into a doctorate, in other words a PhD degree. When major changes were made to the system for regulating immigration into Australia in 1989, this ‘upgrade’ made a lot of sense. Mary’s doctoral work actually placed her to become one of Australia’s real experts in migration and refugee law—then rather new areas of law.

  At the time of our engagement and marriage, tape recordings still served as my library and there was always a need for me to find readers. While Mary often helped me, I knew that it would stretch our relationship if I made huge demands on her time by asking her to read aloud a great deal of material.

  I believe I came across my first Apple computer, which was known as a home computer, in about 1984, not long before I met Mary. However, I merely noted its glass screen and thought that these types of computers weren’t going to be much good for blind people like me. Of course, I was so very, very wrong.

  Back then, there was no way I could foresee marvels such as the application of synthetic speech to computer programs. Nor did either Mary or I imagine that within six or seven years, my methods of working would be completely different, owing to the advances in computer-based adaptive technology. However, we did recognise that improvements in technology that would enhance my independence were likely to occur.

  Immediately after Christmas 1985, Mary and I travelled down to her parents’ holiday house on Phillip Island for a few days. I was still adjusting to becoming part of a big family; after all, I was much older than most budding sons-in-law. However, Gerard and Jacq were very accommodating. I just needed a little time to become acquainted with everyone and to be my true self within the bosom of the family circle.

  In mid-January 1986 I contracted glandular fever. This is known colloquially as the kissing disease because it is often transmitted among teenagers. I think that my students were somewhat amused that I caught this disease so shortly after my engagement. I am sure that the momentous changes that had occurred over the previous months had run my immune system down and made me susceptible.

  It took me some months to get better. At one stage my GP suggested plaintively that perhaps I should consider postponing the wedding. ‘No, not a chance,’ I replied. ‘I’ll crawl down the aisle if I have to, but I will be there for Mary on the appointed day.’

  In mid-February Mary, who was then working as a judge’s associate, was sent with her judge on circuit to hear cases in Geelong. I asked Lois if Mary and I could borrow her family’s holiday house at Point Lonsdale, and she kindly agreed. This would make it easy for Mary to drive the short distance to Geelong each day, where she and the judge were scheduled to work for the month of February. I stayed in the Point Lonsdale house, still battling the fatigue associated with glandular fever, and otherwise recovering from the stresses I had endured over the preceding half year.

  After Mary left in the morning, I would tidy up the kitchen, wash the dishes and put on the washing. One morning I turned on the television in the living room and the sounds of the ABC’s pre-school program Play School wafted through. ‘Will I really and truly hear this background of children’s songs in our house?’ I wondered.

  One Sunday in the lead-up to our wedding I took a cab to Mary’s parents’ home for lunch. Several American ophthalmologists were in attendance, one of whom asked me how I fitted in. Without thinking too much, I threw back, ‘I’m one of Professor Crock’s failed patients.’

  Later, Gerard suggested that perhaps my joke had been somewhat unfortunate. Trying to get out of a hole, I said, ‘I think it was just the beer talking.’ Gerard laughed, but I promised that I would not misbehave again.

  Mary’s dad retired from his professorship at the University of Melbourne in 1986 in order to go into private practice. We set the date for our wedding as Saturday, 3 May 1986, which was after the completion of Gerard’s retirement events. The wedding would take place at the Newman College Chapel at the University of Melbourne, where Mary’s parents had married thirty years earlier. Gerard and his twin brother, Harry, had lived as undergraduate medical students at Newman.

  Mary’s younger brother John was already married, but Mary was to be the first daughter of the house to wed. There was much to do, and Mary’s mum, Jacq, was in her element. One evening Jacq turned to Mary and said, ‘Darling, you should be following more closely all of the things that have to be done. What if you and Ron have a daughter? You will need to know how to organise her wedding.’

  ‘Mother dear,’ replied Mary, ‘let us all hope that our daughter has your organising genes.’

  It’s traditional for the groom not to see the bridal dress until his bride walks down the aisle to greet him. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to see Mary’s dr
ess, so about two weeks before the big day, she tried it on for me in the living room of her parents’ home. I was able to feel the dress, from top to bottom, to note all of the curves, billows and flounces. I was quite overcome. This would be one of many ways in which Mary thought about how we needed to adjust traditions and conventions in our life together.

  About ten days before the wedding Mary moved some of her furniture, together with boxes filled with various assorted possessions, into my unit. What had been my home was about to become our home.

  A few days before the big event, my surrogate mum, Lois, bounced through the front door and marched straight into the main bedroom. ‘We’re going to sort out your wardrobe,’ she announced. Under her edict, there would be much throwing out of old garments. I would need to purchase new pyjamas and underwear. As she methodically went through my wardrobe, Lois pulled out a lot of my treasured clothing, saying, ‘Mary will need some of this space.’

  We loaded up Lois’s car with my synthetic leopard-skin bedspread, my old safari suits from the 1970s and my wide ties. Everything went to the nearest op shop. The woman behind the counter asked me whether this was from a deceased estate. I said, ‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’ If only I had kept a couple of those safari suits! Mary’s brother Paul was particularly fond of a sky-blue number with short sleeves and little buttoned pockets.

  Mary spent the day before our wedding with her family. On the previous afternoon she had collected my clothes and other possessions for our honeymoon. We had decided to take just one suitcase, which could hold a couple of Mary’s good dresses and my good suit. I would take a big backpack full of our other clothes. As it would be on my back, I could hold Mary’s arm as she wheeled the suitcase. There were no ‘spinner’ cases in those days: travelling was altogether a more cumbersome undertaking.

  On the final day of my bachelorhood, I walked to Lois’s home. She tried to teach me the words of the wedding hymns, but I was far too excited to concentrate.

  Saturday, 3 May 1986, the day of our wedding, was a cool Melbourne morning. An early mist cleared into a warm and crystal-clear autumn day. Father Frank Brennan was ready to perform the nuptials. Mary’s sisters, Trish and Marnie, were her bridesmaids, while former student, colleague and close friend Graham Smith was my best man, and Andrew McNicol was my groomsman. Andrew and Sue McNicol were our mutual friends who truly had most to do with our first meeting.

  The wedding was set for 11 a.m. We boys were in the sacristy with Father Frank as he put on his vestments. We decided to have a little drink, just a touch of champagne to celebrate. While we were trying to relax, a message came to us that Mary and her dad were getting ready to walk down the aisle. I should have realised that Professor Gerard Crock (and Mary) would be punctual to the second. So, I came out and stood at the altar rails as Mary and Gerard walked to meet me.

  Mary was wearing her bridal dress, which I had previewed two weeks earlier, and she was also adorned by the family’s 100-year-old bridal veil. When Gerard put dear Mary’s hand in mine, I almost cried. The Newman College chapel was filled to overflowing. There were the 130 wedding guests, but there were also many of my former students, who came along just to see us get married. Mary thinks we had more than 400 people at the chapel.

  Our wedding reception in the Athenaeum Club was such fun. Mary and I both spoke. At that time it was still a little unusual for brides to do this. For me, Mary’s gentle words symbolised the partnership we both sought through our marriage. At the end of the day our jaws were a little sore from smiling. That evening we flew up to Sydney to begin our two-month-long overseas honeymoon.

  Of course I had never been on such a trip with another person. I worried whether I would have enough to keep me occupied. ‘If we ran out of conversation, what would I do?’ I mused. I had collected twenty audio tapes to play on my Walkman, representing about thirty hours of reading time, and put them in the backpack. A week before the wedding I wondered whether I had enough material, so in panic I collected another twenty cassettes and mailed them off to friends in Canada, which was the halfway point of our journey. Needless to say, I didn’t get time to finish all of those cassettes.

  We spent our wedding night at the Sydney Airport Hilton. Strange is fate, for we never imagined that we would end up living most of our married life in that fair city. On Sunday, 4 May, we took off on a honeymoon that would include visits to various law schools and immigration legal centres. Alas, holidays where Mary and I discard work altogether have been rarities. However, we planned to begin in Hawaii with a few days of alone time.

  I had arranged for twelve long-stemmed red roses to be at our Sydney terminal for Mary at take-off, together with a bottle of champagne, and she was utterly delighted. The wonderful flight attendants took the roses and put them on ice, and we later shared the champagne with the passengers sitting near us. For all of us travelling in cattle-class economy, this was a rare treat and drew appreciative applause.

  The roses lasted right to the end of our magic stay in Honolulu and Kauai, Hawaii’s ‘Garden Island’. From there we travelled on to the US mainland and to Canada, where we stayed with friends. Some of these I had befriended during my student years, others in Australia when I was a young teacher. We opened the European leg of our honeymoon with a few days in Paris, a city with which I am still in love. We dressed up in our finest clothes for a very special dinner at an expensive restaurant on the Champs-Élysées, relishing every moment. In Brussels we stayed with members of the family who had hosted Mary when she travelled there as an exchange student in her early high-school years and with some friends she had made at that time.

  Then it was on to the United Kingdom. We visited friends in England, and spent a week in Ireland, where we stayed with aging relatives of Sue McNicol in a rural farmhouse in which no fewer than nine children had been raised. We feasted on steaming soda bread baked in the oven of a peat-burning stove and luxuriated in an enormous feather bed that had once held a mess of children all sleeping together. (The family had had one room for the boys and another for the girls.) In London and Dublin we visited law schools and immigration legal centres, just as we had done in North America.

  Putting aside the joys of living together as a married couple, what stands out in my memory are the experiences travelling with Mary opened up for me. In Hawaii, for example, we climbed down to the bottom of a waterfall. I can still hear the gurgling of the water as I concentrated on keeping my footing under Mary’s trusting eyes. Given Mary’s love of art, in Paris she took me to museums and even broke some protocols by helping me to touch several Rodin sculptures. I felt so many statues and often they were very high up. My private joke with Mary was that never before had one person felt so many marble feet in Paris.

  Mary, who I’m told has Irish features and colouring, felt very at home in Ireland. For my part, I loved the fact that the Irish always seemed to have time for a chat. It took me a little while to fully appreciate Irish humour. I recall one day asking a passer-by if he knew the way to the post office. I imagined him looking at me quizzically, for he simply replied, ‘Of course,’ and continued on his way. Then the next person we approached dropped what he was doing and said: ‘Now, it will just be easier if I take you there myself.’

  We returned to Melbourne on 1 July and settled into our home. I began teaching and Mary worked on her PhD. Later, she took a job at Melbourne’s Ecumenical Migration Centre, where she was engaged to study the adequacy of advice services available to people with immigration-related problems.

  We began to socialise. Friends were coming and going from our home. Goodness me, I was actually part of a married couple doing all of the normal things married people do. Had I really grown up?

  In mid-August, Mary decided it was time to throw her birth-control pills in the bin. Our first-born was conceived in September. A new chapter in our lives was opening up.

  11

  Becoming a Father

  The shape of a woman obviously alters when she is expect
ing, but without sight I had never really understood the changing contours of women in various stages of pregnancy. Previously, several very pregnant friends had put my hand on their belly to show me how far they had come, but this marked the extent of my knowledge.

  During our total of three successful pregnancies I was able to feel all of Mary’s body and how it altered in shape and texture each month. I was wonderstruck by the growth of our babies. I learned all about maternity clothes and the expanding sizes of maternity bras. As the pregnancies progressed, Mary’s centre of gravity gradually altered. It’s now quite some time ago, but I recollect that in the late stages Mary walked more on her heels than on the balls of her feet. Especially during the final weeks of her pregnancies, her changing dimensions seemed extraordinary to me.

  I was able to feel the kicks of our babies, and that was truly wondrous. Like most husbands, I got used to the fact that an expanding wife and her pillows seemed to take up most of our bed during the last months of pregnancy. In the third and final trimester of her first pregnancy, Mary ceased her part-time work to focus on our first arrival.

  In late April or in early May 1987, when Mary was around six to seven months’ pregnant, the Hawke government introduced the Industrial Relations Bill 1987. This was a crucial reform and I really needed to come to grips with it. Having to use tape recorders meant that I worked at a much slower pace than did my academic colleagues with vision. While the long hours of my days were rather tiring, there was simply no other way in which I could complete my work. To save time, I asked Mary whether, given that she was now at home, she could read this 250-page Bill onto tape for me.

  ‘Darling, if contractions come, just breathe through them. But remember—I really need this Bill,’ I joked.

  Ah well, the best-laid plans of mice and expectant men. The day after Mary had completed reading it onto tape, Prime Minister Hawke decided for political reasons to scuttle the Bill and to go for an early election. What Mary had spent so much time reading onto tape for me was now pretty well useless. She was not amused.