by Zelie Bullen
At the end of the crematorium service, her coffin glided away behind the curtain. I wasn’t ready for that—there was no way I was ready to let her go. I sat on the front of my chair and for a moment I considered standing up and going and stopping the coffin. But I froze, and sat there in horror watching her disappear.
Dad, Jan and the girls had flown over for the funeral. He sat with Mum, Freda, Bert and me at the front of the chapel; it felt odd—he had been such a minor part of our family. I barely acknowledged him. As we were walking out of the chapel, he came up to me and put his arm around me. I remember thinking, ‘What do you want?’—not aggressively, but just because it felt so unfamiliar. It was such an extremely raw time for us all that I felt I needed love and comfort from people I was close to, and that wasn’t him. He half whispered to me that he was sorry he had missed out on so much of our lives.
I had a sudden urge to be brutally honest with him, to tell him it was Julie who had wanted a relationship with him, not me, and he was too late. But I couldn’t find the words to express my feelings so I remained silent. I was angry—I just wanted him to go away and leave me alone.
In the next few weeks, Mum, Freda and I were surrounded by family and friends who all wanted to help us in our grief. But they eventually had their own lives to go back to, and we were left alone to deal with the hideous empty space Julie had left in our lives. Mum was grieving while trying to hold me together. I was trying to lean on Paul, but he wasn’t yet strong enough after Mark’s death. I felt let down and it ended our relationship.
Tamzin moved out of our place. Tragically, she lost her own sister, Felicity, in a car accident on New Year’s Eve. It was a strange and terrible coincidence that Paul, Tamz and myself had all lost an older sibling within a year. We each continued on as best we could but we all grieved very differently. Paul would get drunk and violent; I would sob and cry; and Tamzin seemed remarkably calm. As Paul and I grew apart, my friendship with Tamzin grew stronger. We understood each other’s pain.
I didn’t want Julie’s ashes to be put into a wall, so we had purchased a plot to bury them in. Her plot was close to Mark’s. I had to drive past the cemetery every day on my way to college. It was a difficult and messy time for me. I would go to her grave a couple of times a week and tell her that I missed her. I’ve not held onto a lot of emotion in my life—I am usually able to let it go. But I couldn’t believe I was sitting at my sister’s grave at the age of nineteen. However, after collapsing in total grief on the loose gravel beside her grave a few times, I tried to avoid turning into a blubbering mess at the cemetery—it was so hard to get back on my feet afterwards and to compose myself enough to get on with my day. From then on I tried to steer away from the emotions that took me to that emotionally unstable place. I could release all that at home in my bedroom, or when I was talking to someone about Julie, but not at the graveside. When I was there, I’d try to be matter-of-fact—just thank her for looking after me when I was scared or I’d tell her what had been happening.
It was a long time before I truly let her go. The denial, the grief, the fear of being without her—these emotions were so intense. I felt that by not letting go of her, by holding onto our bond, I could somehow keep her close. I felt that letting go was betraying her. I didn’t want it to change.
The memory of her holding my face after Fred had left and saying she would never leave me was so vivid and strong. I held an image in my head of her saying that and it seemed to be stuck on replay. Time and again in my grieving process, I’d scream out, ‘You said you’d never go! I know you didn’t mean to go, but you said you wouldn’t go!’ I felt so messed up, and I didn’t know who to trust. Abandonment was the dominant emotion I felt.
It wasn’t her fault, obviously, but I used to think a lot about whether or not I should join her, which was a hideously scary thought for a teenager to have. I would think, ‘What am I supposed to do, Julie? What am I supposed to do? Why did you leave?’
CHAPTER 7
Dad
At the end of 1990, I got my ag diploma from Muresk and was now ready to start a Bachelor of Science degree, hoping to get into veterinary science eventually.
Over the months, Dad’s words to me at Julie’s funeral had played on my mind. I’d be lying on my bed thinking of Julie and the thought would come into my head that maybe I should get to know him. I put it off, though, asking myself why I would bother contacting him when he hadn’t bothered to get to know me.
My boyfriend at the time, Paul Pernechele, was shocked when I announced in bed one morning that I wanted to go and catch up with my dad. I explained that I wanted to get to know him as a person, that I felt I should do that for Julie.
By some kind of incredible coincidence, which still amazes me to this day, the phone rang in the middle of that conversation, and Dad was on the line. I think it was the first time he had ever called me. In my surprise, I told him that I had just been talking about going over to see him. He was quiet for a while, and I thought he was holding back tears when he said, ‘That would be great, kid.’ Then he explained that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and that it had spread throughout his body. He said he would really like to see me as well. I went back to bed and told my boyfriend I was heading east. I knew it was now or never.
I flew to Gundagai to stay with Fred, Bert and their new baby daughter, Hayley, at their family farm. We would travel up to Sydney every weekend to spend time with Dad at the home of his best mate, John McGarry. Jan and Dad had separated at this stage and he and his girlfriend Leah had lost most of their money in the property meltdown in Queensland in the late eighties and early 90s, and then he had spent what was left looking for various treatments and cures around the world. None of them had worked, and he was now a very sick man.
John and his wife Coral were wonderful. They opened their home and their hearts to us all at a difficult time, and gave each of Dad’s four surviving daughters time alone with him. I was grateful to be able to spend that time with Dad, and for some of the things he said to me. I felt I finally achieved closure before he died.
He wanted me to know that he was proud of me and he was sorry that things had been hard, both financially and emotionally, because he had left. He expressed his remorse for not having spent much time with either Julie or me; he particularly felt that he and I had had a very superficial relationship, which I agreed with, and he wished that hadn’t been the case. He said, ‘When you have children, they are a part of you, and even when you’re not with them, you feel that you carry them inside.’ He apologised for leaving it so late to try to change things, and thanked me for agreeing to see him. All of this was said between attacks of coughing and gasping, and he often had to lie back on the couch to regain his breath. Sometimes he had a tear in his eye, or a small smile on his face.
He and his girlfriend, Leah, had been living in the Cook Islands on and off for the last year. In early 1992 they headed back there. Ostensibly they were going because Leah was doing some work for the Cook Islands government, but we all knew that Dad wanted to die there. He loved the islanders, the weather, the fishing, the lifestyle—he wanted to be there at the end.
I will always remember the last time I saw him. It was so different from Julie’s death, where we didn’t get an opportunity to say goodbye. Freda, Bert and I went to see him at John McGarry’s house. Our sisters, Cloud and Kate, had also come down from their home on the Gold Coast and he had an arm around each of them, both for support and out of affection. We said goodbye; as we drove away, I looked out the back window. I remember looking at him and thinking, ‘You’re done.’ He could hardly stand up, he looked like a skeleton, and I knew it was the last time I would see him.
Bert was driving, Freda was in the front passenger seat and Hayley was beside me in a baby seat. I looked back one last time and saw Dad walking back into the house, still with an arm around each of the girls. I turned to face the front; Freda was looking at me and she asked if I was OK. I said, ‘No. I kind
of was—until you asked.’ And then I started crying. I said I was scared. What if I wanted him in the future?
Then Fred said something to me that has stayed with me ever since. It is one of the things that I think of when times are tough. She simply said, ‘Don’t worry about the future.’ I have turned those words around in my brain so many times, both for myself and when talking to others who are worried or scared of something that hasn’t happened yet. Such simple words, but so precious.
I was still living with Fred and Bert when we heard Dad had died. It was a hard time for everyone, but I was dumbfounded at how upset Mum was. She was in Holland with her partner at the time, Alderbertos, a Dutchman she had met when he was backpacking around Australia. They were together for three years and would spend the European summer at his home in Holland, then fly back to Australia to avoid the European winter. I thought they were a match made in heaven, but eventually they went their own ways.
We called to tell her, and as I listened to her sob, I realised with some shock that she still had love for Dad—it revealed to me the intensity of the love they had once shared. I found some peace within myself to realise that they had shared real love at some point.
Leah brought Dad’s body back from the Cook Islands to Sydney, where his funeral was held. Then his ashes were taken back to Perth for a memorial service with his mother and siblings. I was the only one of his children at that service in Perth; it felt very strange—I didn’t know most of the people there.
When the council had gone to use the plot next to Julie’s, they had hit a shelf of granite rock so they had abandoned it and started another row. Now, when Fred, Leah and I approached them and asked if we could purchase that plot and pay to drill through the granite to place Dad’s ashes there, they agreed. We buried his ashes in the plot right next to Julie and I have always felt good about that—she finally has her dad.
CHAPTER 8
Taking risks
With everything that had been happening, I decided I didn’t want to be starting another course—all I wanted was to work with animals. As luck would have it, I saw an ad on TV for the newly opened Warner Bros Movie World on the Gold Coast; the ad showed a rearing palomino horse, and I thought, ‘Someone trained that horse, and I want to meet them.’
I had also become worried about Cloud and Kate—they were only eleven and nine and they had just lost their dad. I wanted to hang out with Jan and the girls and maybe bring some happiness into their lives because I knew that, if Julie had been alive, that’s what she would have done. I decided to go over and spend time with them. If it didn’t work out, I told myself, I could just head back to Perth. So I deferred my degree for six months and made plans to head east again.
Paul Pernechele was very compassionate and supportive about my move, but he told me he wanted me to come back to him. I had to tell him there was no guarantee that that would happen.
He was a mechanic and he helped me get my ute prepared for the journey. He even organised for his brother-in-law, who was an interstate truck driver, to give me a lift to Melbourne. We loaded my ute onto the tray and he drove me across the Nullarbor Plain to the outskirts of Melbourne, ending up in an industrial truck lot where he unloaded my ute and unceremoniously left me and my faithful dog, Snoopy, to continue our journey. By then Snoopy was starting to get more miles under his belt than most people I knew.
I had no idea where I was, but we found our way to Freda and Bert’s farm in Gundagai and stayed there for two weeks. I then drove the thirteen hours to the Gold Coast and moved into the lounge room of Jan’s home. Jan was warm and welcoming, as she had always been. I think she was pleased to have some family company at such a difficult time for her; she was very supportive to me during a period when I know she was struggling as well. The girls were very excited to see me.
It was the beginning of a new relationship with my sisters and enabled me over the next twenty or so years to watch them grow up. I loved sharing their lives and spending time with them. It was also the beginning of a great adventure in my own life—of taking risks, travelling by myself and (I hoped) finding out more about animal training.
I saw a classified ad in the paper just after I arrived for ‘casual chaperones’ at Movie World over the Christmas holiday period. I had no idea what a chaperone was, nor what prerequisites were required for such a job, but, as Jan pointed out, it would be a foot in the door to the place with the rearing palomino! I put in a résumé, along with two thousand other applicants, and twenty of us got interviews.
My wardrobe consisted of nothing but jeans and T-shirts, so Jan lent me some clothes for the job interview. On the day she even did my make-up for me. Despite being twenty-one years old I still had no idea how to even apply foundation or mascara; we all had a bit of a laugh about it.
Off I went to my interview. I was told that the role of the chaperone was essentially to act out scripts and to assist the visitors to Movie World at the various attractions. We were also involved with the parades and escorting the Looney Tunes characters through the crowds, often having to lead them through the public by the hand and have to be the actors’ eyes, ears and voice as they were encased in cumbersome costumes.
As with most workplaces, there was a hierarchy at the park, with chaperones being seen as below the show and entertainment department, which included the actors, dancers and stunt performers. I knew I had the chaperone job as soon as I walked in; I was very confident and I just thought, ‘I have a good feeling about this.’
Sure enough, a short time later I got a phone call. I was one of twelve successful candidates.
Work at Movie World started with one week of induction and orientation, where we were trained in public speaking and learnt how to present the spiels for the different attractions. I practised endlessly at home—I’m sure Jan and the girls could probably recite the scripts word for word to this day, after having heard me repeat them so many times.
One thing they drummed into us all that week was that we had to be happy, friendly and bubbly—the kind of people who want visitors to enjoy the experience that was Movie World. I thought, ‘Man, I’ve ended up in the right place—I’ll be good at that!’ By then I was sick of studying and I was thrilled to be finally out in the world.
On our first day of orientation, I asked a staff member where the stables were and they waved a hand vaguely and said, ‘Somewhere over there.’ When we finished for the day and were given our pass and uniforms, I went up to a staff door and with much excitement thought, ‘I can go through that.’
I made my way to the stables where I saw a man driving a small green open-topped utility called a Gator; he was feeding hay to the horses off the back. I walked straight up to him and said, ‘Hi, my name’s Zelie Thompson and I’m looking for the boss of the horse department.’
‘That’s me, I’m Tony,’ he said.
‘I’m so happy to meet you—I’ve come all the way from Perth to meet you.’
As I explained my interest in working with animals, his polite smile widened into a grin that covered his big friendly face. Tony Jablonski was in charge of the horses and involved with their training for the Western Action stunt show. He is still involved with Movie World with the RM Williams Outback Spectacular and from that moment on he has always tried to help me in any way he can. He was the first person I’d met (other than vets or zookeepers) who was paid to work with animals.
I volunteered to work at the stable outside my normal hours. I’d turn up there hours before the park opened and do anything I could, whether it was taking rugs off the horses or assisting Tony to train a horse. Then, in the afternoon, when I’d finished chaperoning for the day, I’d get changed back into jeans and go and help out some more.
Chaperones’ shifts were rotated so we worked at all the different sites around the park. I particularly used to love the days when I was rostered on at the Western Action show. I thought it was so much fun. The Western Action stunt show was an American-style cowboy and Indian knock-’e
m-down theatrical performance, with larger than life characters and lots of comic relief. Actors and stunt people played the characters, but it was the live animal action, the horses and dogs, that really excited me.
To my utter surprise, on about my third roster the show’s stunt coordinator walked up to me and asked if I’d like to train to be in the show. He said they needed a spare Calamity Jane for the holidays and that he’d heard Tony mention me. Something weird happened to my voice and I said, ‘That would be great!’ in a falsetto. I was transferred permanently to the Western Action stunt show and from then on I became one of the Calamity Jane performers.
As well as my role as Calamity Jane I also performed alongside the beautiful down-to-earth country and western singer Lee Kernaghan. Back then he was just starting out—around the time he released his first album, Three Chain Road—and during the school holidays he had a gig at the Western Action arena. I played one of his ‘ute girls’ in the show. The ute girl would drive a ute into the arena and stop, get out and walk towards Lee while he sang about the tough decision he had to make, because his girl was jealous of his ute and he had to choose between them. He is a lovely guy.
Working in the Western Action show meant I was working with stunt people. Approximately half of them were already involved in the film and television industry. Our work day began, before the park opened, by catching a bus from Movie World to a local gymnasium, where we were required to work on our strength and fitness. When we returned, we would usually attend rehearsals and then all have lunch together. I wanted to learn everything I could.
Soon after starting in the Western Action show I decided I wanted to be a stunt person too. I thought it was a whole lot of fun—not easy but fun—and it seemed second nature to me. I began training with the ‘stunties’ to become a qualified stunt performer, doing weekly sessions in gymnastics and trampolining. I really enjoyed all the recommended courses, such as precision driving, abseiling, rigging and scuba diving.