by Bunkie King
Jack is quoted as saying, ‘I had someone the other day ask me if I was still living with the two sisters. And I wondered how an 11-year relationship could still be news … It only continues to be a relationship for the same reason as any relationship. There presumably must be a lot of trust, a lot of discussion and a lot of love.’
Trust? I hadn’t trusted Jack since events in Orange back in 1972 when Le and I arrived on the set of Boney to find him in the middle of a fling, and there is never a lot of discussion between any of us. I wonder what his definition of love is? I don’t ask.
Soon after, on 14 June 1980 in an article by Victor Davis in the Sunday Examiner-Express entitled ‘Lady-killer of Cannes’, Jack completely distorts our reality by declaring, ‘The Women’s Libbers attack me as a man dominating two compliant females. It is the other way around. I am an emotional slave to both of them. They are the free spirits.’
Perhaps he feels he is an emotional slave but it’s absurd, of course, to refer to Le and me as ‘free spirits’. We’re not empowered.
In Melbourne, I go along with Jack and Le to have lunch with the renowned Toorak hairdresser-socialite Lillian Frank. Her husband Richard, a famous restaurateur, is cooking. But it becomes apparent that Jack’s real motive is for Lillian to do a story on the happy threesome for her column in The Herald, a big-selling Melbourne newspaper. He succeeds.
In the introduction to ‘The Sisters Jack Loves’, published on 5 July, Lillian states that we’ve been living together for 11 years in ‘an unusual arrangement, but deeply satisfying to all of them’.
Obviously Lillian got that impression from us. Le and I have learned how to tell a half-truth and make it sound wonderful.
Lillian challenges us: ‘I didn’t think two women — not even sisters — could even agree to share clothes, so how do you manage to share a man?’
‘Funny that,’ I comment. ‘No I don’t share my clothes with Le — she’s too untidy. Come to think of it, I don’t like sharing things with anyone. But we don’t feel as though we are sharing Jack — he doesn’t belong to either of us so we can’t share him. We don’t own him. But we do love him. We are sharing time and life WITH him.’
I do genuinely have the ideal that nobody owns another. I believe that partners stay together because they hold similar ideals and love each other. While I don’t feel that I own Jack, I suspect that he feels he owns me. We’re not equal in that respect.
Le responds by saying, ‘We didn’t plan it this way. It just happened. And 11 years later it’s still happening, for the three of us. Nobody holds us to our relationship. We are together because it’s everybody’s own choice, and our relationship is a very happy one together. To each of us individually it’s a sensitive and beautiful thing, like that of a husband and wife, or of a family. And after all, we are sisters, and we love each other as well.’
Oh, really? In the 11 years we have lived with Jack I never felt as though she cared for or loved me. When I mashed my ankle did she tell Jack, ‘Bunkie needs to go to hospital, now!’? Did she come and visit me in hospital? And when I came back from ten months exile in England she greeted me with a nod, not a hug. If it’s love, it’s a funny kind of love.
I start to question my complicity in this facade that is designed to reinforce Jack’s image. I’ve observed that he’s vigilant in ensuring what he says to the press supports the official version. I know not to mention anything that would contradict this. It’s not acceptable for me to speak openly in interviews about our lives and say, ‘Well, actually I separated from Jack for ten months, then he manipulated my life in such a way that I ended up coming back.’ Imagine how that would go down. Jack subtly controls the message.
***
Over the course of a few months, Jack slowly ends all the relationships he has entered into while I’ve been away. He even asks me to come with him. Twice we visit a female artist in the bar of a hotel in the Rocks. I sit like a shag on a rock thinking, I don’t want to fucking well be here, while they talk to each other over a couple of drinks. It’s clear from their body language they’ve been intimate.
It isn’t easy for Jack to disengage from her, she is adept at playing emotional games — she apparently attempted suicide while staying at the farm when I was in England. An ambulance had to drive all the way from Coffs.
The next time, I have to sit in the car outside the hotel for three or four hours while he visits her again. This is their final time together; I never see or hear of her again.
In Sydney’s eastern suburbs we visit a mansion owned by a middle-aged woman. Jack tells me he’s been invited for lunch. I wait in the living room while he goes upstairs with her for half an hour. When they finally emerge she offers a champagne and lobster lunch. I drink more than I eat and end up with a throbbing headache.
Some months later Le tells me that Jack had been having many affairs while I was away. Now I realise what has been going on. He’s probably dragged me along to confirm that I am back and prove to these women that he was serious about breaking it off.
I am so used to waiting hours for him to finish whatever business he is engaged in that I never question what happens while I wait for Jack. I sit in the car outside a Potts Point apartment block for three hours or more while Jack has lunch with English actress Jenny Agutter. He’s been infatuated with her ever since seeing her play a schoolgirl in the classic English film Walkabout made in Australia in 1970. He takes along a large bunch of flowers.
When he eventually returns to the car he is chuckling as he sits down.
I am curious. ‘What’s funny?’
‘She called me parochial,’ he says, still chuckling.
I ask why and he replies, ‘Because I said I wouldn’t leave you and Le.’
Why is he discussing leaving Le and me? Again, I don’t ask. I’m just relieved that he has chosen us over Jenny Agutter.
So why didn’t he leave us for any of these beautiful women? I can only figure that we are his safety net, his emotional security blanket.
Jack was also involved with a young woman in Melbourne while I was away. During his ‘breaking off campaign’, Le and I accompany him to afternoon tea at her parents’ house, a Toorak mansion. After a cup of tea Jack gets up and walks out, leaving Le and me to continue making small talk with her mother. Over the next couple of hours this develops into an awkward situation. I am embarrassed for both her and us, but being a society matron she retains her composure. Eventually I stand and excuse myself to use the bathroom and go looking for him. As I walk down the corridor a door opens and Jack appears. He moves past me with no explanation and yet again I don’t ask what has been going on.
Another of his girlfriends, a young actress, arrives at our Bondi flat accompanied by a few friends, I guess with the intention of forcing a scene. Her demonstration goes straight over my head and Jack and Le aren’t about to get involved. I didn’t even know Jack was having an affair with her until Le told me later this actress was serious about him. Le actually confides that she is glad I am back because she thought she’d lost Jack, they were about to split up — he’d all but gone. I get the sense that my return has pulled the whole thing back together again. I hope this neutralises her original resentment of my involvement in the relationship.
Before I left for England I gave Le a fridge magnet with a picture of fingers clinging to the edge of a cliff. It said, ‘Hang in there’. I remind her of it and ask whether she still has it. She laughs, ‘Yes, well that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing.’
This could be my chance to learn more about Le’s feelings. Through this we might develop a relationship with more love and support for each other, but we’re so English in that regard, we never enter that kind of emotional territory and reveal authentic feelings.
Hanging on is what Le and I have done for years. We have a secret pact; an unspoken agreement sealed so many years before. We love him and know no other way to live so are prepared to put up with whatever Jack does — as long as he keeps co
ming home.
Chapter 18
Christmas in LA
During my time away Jack became friends with Pat Condon of Condon Entertainment and began sharing office space in Circular Quay. Over the years, Pat brings out acts like Sammy Davis Jnr, Tina Turner, Peter Allen, and the Village People. I am determined to make a real job for myself as Jack’s PA/secretary so I can learn skills on which to build a career. When we’re in Sydney I go into the office every day.
It’s a role in which I feel useful, doing something constructive with my life — I am Jack’s secretary with an office in the city. Pat’s secretary Nicky is there every day, we are good company for each other and his bookkeeper shows me how to set up the books for a small business.
Le and I don’t have free access to the bank account; when we need money we ask Jack and he gives us some cash. I’m not paid a wage. It takes some persistence before he agrees to allow Le and me to be co-signatories, but now it is easier for us to buy groceries and pay bills on time. Having access to the bank account makes it possible for me to take charge of day-to-day expenditure. I organise the payment of all the bills and go to the bank for our cash-in-hand. All out-going money goes through me. I take responsibility for trying to budget for the lean times. Jack gets exasperated because I am so frugal, careful the money doesn’t get frittered away. One day in frustration, he yells, ‘You’re tighter than a fish’s arsehole!’
I don’t argue with him; I’m secretly proud of my conscientiousness and think, That’s why I’m in charge of the money!
Since 1973 home for us is the farm outside Coffs Harbour. In Sydney we impose on our friends, often sleeping on their living-room floor. Just before I came back from England, Le had seen a small two-bedroom flat at Bondi Beach, right on Campbell Parade with a view of the ocean. She wanted Jack to buy the property. It was cheap, too, a little under $100,000, and perfect for their needs. Jack had the money, but preferred to spend it on luxury items, music and books, and objets d’art. For the farm he delighted in all sorts of purchases: old wagons, a sulky and horses.
My increased confidence enables me to convince him that we need our own place. ‘This is absurd,’ I reason. ‘We need a base in Sydney. We can’t keep inflicting ourselves on other people. It might be OK for a couple, but three is too much of a strain on our hosts.’
So Jack buys the Bondi flat Le had seen. It is pretty crappy inside, so Le and I get to work ripping up all the carpets and sanding the floorboards. We clean all the windows, strip and repaint them. Le employs her artistic flair with the interior decoration. A wall of mirrors reflects the Pacific sky into the small lounge room like a living painting. She furnishes in minimalist beach style with Asian influences — it resembles a sophisticated beach shack. The white moiré (water-patterned) wallpaper in the living area and along the hallway visually connects us to the sound of the waves we can hear through the open windows. The only things we don’t renovate are the bathroom and kitchen; a tradesman does those later to Le’s design.
Being right on Campbell Parade, Le and I spend a lot of time at the beach and sitting on a grassy slope reading or watching the passing parade of tourists, joggers, mothers and lovers. Le still treats me like her little sister, although we’re more able to talk as equals, but it’s rarely about anything meaningful in our lives or the relationship. We’re mainly there for each other as companions, grateful that we aren’t sitting alone day after day. We support each other with everyday practical tasks but just aren’t there for each other emotionally.
In London I had discovered the band the Police and am really into Sting, the lead singer. I suggest to Le that we go and see Brimstone and Treacle, a movie in which Sting has a starring role. Afterwards Le tells me it is an interesting film and can see why I am into Sting. I feel glad to have introduced her to something from my own life experience.
The Bondi flat gives us more stability than we’ve had in years. This change in our lifestyle means that Patrick can stay with us during his first year at Sydney Boys’ High, the same school Jack attended. Le and I ensure he does his homework, has a clean uniform and make him a packed lunch — we’re his surrogate mothers. At the end of the year Patrick returns to live with Beverley.
The Bondi flat proves to be the start of more property acquisitions. When the office building in Circular Quay is scheduled for demolition, I convince Jack to buy a house in Woollahra that he can use for business meetings, professional entertaining and interviews with journalists.
Our postal address is at Woollahra Post Office, opposite our bank. One day, while I am collecting the mail, I notice an Open-for-Inspection board outside a small, double-storey house on Moncur Street and pop in. Jack is hesitant but when we approach the bank manager for a loan he says it’s an extremely good buy.
Again, Le and I strip, clean and paint the house from top to bottom. Once the renovations are complete, I start work at about 11 a.m. and stay there until 9 or 10 p.m. People know they can get to Jack through me at the office. We never have a telephone at our house; we don’t like the intrusion. This is a private, neutral place where he can conduct business. The house is a good investment; it’s a tax deduction. Over the years it will increase in value many times over.
Jack’s income is paid to a company that funds all the other properties he buys, including more land around the farm. When a property next door to the farm comes up for sale, Jack complains that the owners are asking an exorbitant price because they know he will want to buy it. I argue that if he doesn’t buy it, what will happen if the new owners develop it with a house, a resort or a recreation park that overlooks the farm? This changes his mind.
Jack had planned to build a beautiful big house on one side of the farm. However, the neighbours start building right on the boundary with their house overlooking our prospective site. Although the neighbours don’t get the relevant building approvals and have to dismantle the structure, Jack decides instead to renovate the existing farmhouse with extensions that give Le and me each a proper bedroom.
One night at a party Jack is drunk. He disappears for a few hours and still hasn’t surfaced by 2 a.m. when everyone is leaving. It gets to the point where it is just Le and me and the people who live in the house. They start cleaning up so Le and I go outside to wait in the car where we find Jack passed out on the back seat. He can’t be roused; he’s too drunk. There’s no way Le is going to get behind the wheel so I drive us back to Bondi. Le sits beside me, terrified, while I stick tight to the gutter and warily cross the Captain Cook Bridge at 20 kilometres per hour.
That’s it. At 27 it’s time I got my licence. From then on I do most of the driving because Jack drives like a maniac on country roads, scaring me way more than Dennis Hopper! Once up at Coffs he was hurtling along a dirt road when the car hit a pothole. I turned around to see Patrick with a look of bemused shock on his face — covered in dripping, broken eggshells. The carton had bounced up, hit the roof and landed on top of him.
I ask Jack, ‘Why do you drive so fast?’ He explains that he learnt to drive in the outback where, if you drive at a slower speed, you hit all the ruts and potholes. A faster speed means the car flies across the surface. If you’re going around a corner and hit gravel then you can use the spin to get round the corner and accelerate out of it.
Jack is mostly an excellent driver with years of experience; I am not. I flip a car onto its roof on a dirt road in country New South Wales. Jack, Le and I manage to walk away with only a scratch, but the borrowed car is a write-off. I guess when he said to fly over the ruts he didn’t mean upside down.
***
In 1980, Kirk Douglas presents Jack with the Australian Film Institute’s award for Best Actor for his role in Breaker Morant. Kirk had also been president of the Cannes jury that year and strongly applauded Jack’s performance.
Just as we are preparing to gather at the farm for our usual bush Christmas, Jack is summoned by the producers of Breaker to travel to the US on a publicity tour. The film’s release h
as been brought forward. Breaker Morant enjoys the biggest-ever opening for an Australian film, premiering simultaneously in New York and Los Angeles on 22 December, then around the country.
We arrive in the US when The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, My Brilliant Career and The Getting of Wisdom are all screening. Jack falls naturally into his role as the unofficial but highly visible face of our film industry. Notwithstanding the attention and the excellent reviews, however, few people go to see the film and it’s not a success in America.
But Breaker leads to more offers of work in the US and he needs someone locally to represent him. Dennis Hopper introduces Jack to Michael McLean who runs a casting agency in Los Angeles. When Jack conveys an offer from Playboy for the three of us to feature in a nude photo spread I wonder whose idea that was. Le and I immediately reject the idea. Having been seriously burnt by the Mirror articles I don’t wish to repeat the experience.
We spend Christmas at LA’s Beverley Wiltshire Hotel. Jack gives Le and me $500 each, suggesting we buy something nice for ourselves. We saunter down Wiltshire Boulevard and find a jewellery shop. Le buys a diamond and ruby ring and I purchase a bracelet made of knotted gold wire.
I am beginning to have an air of self-assuredness. I am 27 and I know I am a good person with a keen mind but I am still pretty naive about some things. At one of the gala functions for Breaker, an LA lady surrounded by her coterie saunters up to me and says, with a snicker to her friends, ‘I hear that there is such a dearth of men in Australia that there are two women for every man!’
I instinctively agree that woman can slightly outnumber men in Australia but it depends on the age demographic. This statement is followed by a very awkward silence before they move off. Obviously I don’t understand sarcasm.
***
We fly from LA to New Zealand for the filming of Bad Blood, directed by Englishman Mike Newell. The film is based on a true story, and Jack is to play Stan Graham, a paranoid loner who lives near Hokitika, a small village south of Greymouth on the west coast of the South Island. When the police ask him to surrender his guns and rifles, Stan refuses and ends up shooting some policemen and sparking the biggest manhunt in New Zealand’s history.