Yvonne Bornstein - Eleven Days of Hell

In retrospect, that I held together and did not remain closed off was due in no small part to the selfless friendship of a wonderful woman named Rhonda Kohn, whose daughter Natalie went to school with Romy. Rhonda was the closest thing I had to a girlfriend. For some reason, I got along fine with men, but women seemed to find me a bit intimidating. I heard myself called a ‘tough cookie,’ or worse, more than I liked. Yet Rhonda saw through my sometimes-willful exterior attitude to the scared little girl underneath.

During my marriage to Avi, and more so after I’d left him, Rhonda saw that what I needed most of all was a true friend. She was more than that. She was my ballast. Whenever she saw that far-off look in my eyes, she brought me back. Never did she lecture me to stop wallowing in self-pity. Instead, she merely made me a part of life again, able to enjoy the simple things that are the most rewarding.

This usually took the form of her bringing over Natalie to play with Romy. The two little girls would sit themselves down at the dining room table pretending their storybooks were menus. They would tell me to play waitress and take their ‘orders,’ which could be ‘elephant soup’ or ‘horse’s legs.’ Something as purely innocent as that would redirect my emotions.

At more serious moments, Rhonda would sit with me for hours, reassuring me after George’s death that I was not to blame. She would not leave if she thought I’d backslide. It’s now three decades since we met and hers is still the best shoulder on which I can lean.

Still, the essence of survival lies inside of us. The strength is there to overcome any obstacle, but only if we tap into our reserves of grit, pluck, desire, whatever it is. I found that I could kick myself in the behind much harder in times of adversity than success.

So I pulled myself out of bed and dared myself to get back to taking risks.

On a small scale to be sure, but still taking a risk, I borrowed money using my house as collateral and purchased a couple of small rundown houses. I renovated them and put them up for sale. Neck-deep in debt, I was able to sell them and turn a nice little profit. At least financially, I was again standing on my feet.

As for meeting another man, that would take more than an order of horse’s legs and grit. It took time just to even consider dating again. My mindset was, why be burned again? It stayed set for four years—not that I was celibate. To be sure, I wasn’t emulating Mother Teresa. I dated a few guys, but never would have let myself fall head over heels.

In 1986, another friend kept pushing me to meet a guy. Jewish, a recent widower. A hunk, she said. Although I did think a mutual rebounding from tragedy was an inducement, it took another few weeks for me to give in to a blind date. I arranged for him to come to my house for coffee, and in walked an alarmingly huge fellow, six foot four, two hundred pounds, his face obscured by oversized horn-rimmed glasses and a very long beard. Oh, great, I thought, I’m being fixed up with Rasputin.

His name was Daniel Weinstock. At thirty-eight, he was seven years older than me. I learned he was a successful businessman, a computer software programmer specialising in fleet management transport. His company, National Computer Services, wrote the software that allowed big businesses to coordinate transportation across Australia. His wife, Freda, died of cancer barely three months before, leaving two sons, ages ten and six, and he was looking to quickly remarry.

I learned all this because, sitting in a chair in my living room for four hours, all he did was talk about himself. I could have been a piece of furniture. Not that he wasn’t intriguing, or attractive if you could see through the beard, but it was all about him. When he left, I told myself that if I ever saw this Mr Weinstock again, it would be much too soon. Things are never that cut and dried in matters of the heart. Danny was taking his two boys, Ben and Jonathan, away on vacation the following week, and I was surprised when he called me from the little hick town where they were staying. He was a totally different Mr Weinstock. Apparently not feeling the need to impress me, he seemed genuinely interested in me. A couple of days later, he sent me an unbelievably romantic love letter followed the next day by a dozen long-stemmed red roses.

Of course, George had won me with roses, and I reacted the same way this time. When Danny arrived back, with his beard shorn and displaying the handsome features I’d imagined, we became an item. He became obsessed with marrying me. While I didn’t think I could love him the way I had George, he wore down my resistance to falling in love again. I was able to rebuff two proposals, but when he took me to a restaurant and actually kneeled down in front of me in the middle of a full dining room, I said yes. I had but one condition.

‘Danny, I’ll marry you,’ I said, ‘but only if you get up because I’m dying of embarrassment.’

A huge cheer arose from the patrons in the restaurant.

He gave me a ring that night and asked me to move into his house pending our marriage. The house, in a beachside suburb called Brighton, was splendid enough, a bit old and run down but comfortable nonetheless. Danny had worked hard to establish a good home, and the house stood as a testament to his success. But it had something I could not live with—a ghost. Call me melodramatic, but the first time I set foot in the place, I felt the spirit of his late wife, Freda, in every room. Danny suggested renovating it but I reiterated my unease. I didn’t want to be ungrateful, but I simply didn’t want to share my house with another Mrs Weinstock.

So we decided this was the time for both of us to make a new beginning. Danny put the house up for sale, and I put some of my own money into buying a spanking-new five-bedroom home in another suburb, Elsternwick. We moved in just after the new year of 1987, and on March 28, we tied the knot at the South Caulfield Synagogue before eighty guests, including my parents Billie and Wally who came in from Perth, soon to move to Melbourne themselves. What I recall most clearly about that day, other than how hot and stifling it was in that synagogue, was the way Danny’s eyes lit up when I strode in wearing a vintage Charleston lace dress and apricot-colored sash. I did, however, nearly turn solemnity into slapstick comedy when the heat got me under the chupa and I nearly fainted dead away.

We partied and danced the hora until the wee hours at a nearby restaurant called Goldman’s, then honeymooned at Surfer’s Paradise in Queensland. When we came back home, Danny and I palpably believed we had nothing but good fortune waiting for us in the future.

For me, a new life meant two things, which both of us wanted. First was me getting pregnant. Second was me working with him in business. I felt this was a perfect mix of our life’s interests. I wanted another child, but I had no intention of being an old-fashioned housebound mum. Danny was an extremely astute businessman, having prefigured the coming tidal wave of computer-related industries in the early and mid-1980s. Under his steady hand, National Computer Services had developed into a profitable, if not enormously lucrative concern. In me, he understood that he had a savvy and strong woman eager to learn.

Danny began teaching me the ropes of the business and said I was the best student he had ever had. Soon, I was writing those tricky software programs, and by the end of 1987 I elevated myself to the position of co-director with him. The money was steady and rewarding. But we both wanted more. Much more.

I think Danny got from me a sense of business wanderlust. This was a logical extension of my risk-taking impulses. I told him we could stand pat and make a nice living, or we could push the boundaries and perhaps break the bank. And so we began looking around at high-risk capital ventures.