‘She came to hear Robert Dessaix and realised it was me’: Two writers reunite

Robert Dessaix, 78, and Susan Varga, 79, met at a Sydney primary school, lost touch and were unexpectedly reunited four decades later. Both are writers; their lives have other striking parallels, too.

“No friendship is perfect, and I wouldn’t want to be married to her, but I think ours will go on forever.”Credit: Edwina Pickles

Robert: Susan and I met when we were students in the Opportunity Class in years 5 and 6 at Artarmon Public School in the mid-1950s. At that age, you don’t have phrases like “kindred spirits” but you have a sense of attraction. Even then, I was quite Eurocentric, so I was attracted to Susan; her family came from Hungary. I used to call her after school from the red telephone box at the top of the hill and ask, “Susan, do you think in Hungarian?” She was a trifle bossy and very direct. She didn’t suffer fools. She’s still like that.

After we left school, we didn’t see each other again until we met up, by chance, in 1993 at a gay and lesbian writing conference in Rozelle. I was a radio presenter and had changed my name from Robert Jones, the name of my adoptive parents, to Robert Dessaix, my birth mother’s name. Susan came to hear Robert Dessaix and realised it was me. She came up to me at the end of the session and said, “Hello, it’s Susan Varga.” It was a magic moment.

We stayed in touch after that, although we lived in different states [Susan in NSW, Robert in Victoria, then Tasmania]. We’d visit each other and talk on the phone. There were a lot of parallels in our lives. We had both been married and then realised we were gay. We were both writers, and our partners [Peter Timms and Anne Coombs, who died a year ago] were writers. In 1994, we both released books about our mothers: hers was Heddy and Me and mine was A Mother’s Disgrace. Susan told me, “I liked your book, but shall I tell you what was wrong with it?” This is so Susan, so direct. I admire her frankness.

“As you grow older, you become less interested in physical intimacy, and more in emotional intimacy. I feel intimate with Susan.”

Susan’s more worldly than me. She’d been part of [bohemian group] The Push in Sydney, whereas I am quite puritanical: I don’t drink or smoke or take drugs. Susan wanted to escape her bourgeois upbringing, to stick it to polite society. I wanted the opposite: to break in.

We share the same values and politics. We both believe in the importance of social justice. We disagree about how we express these values: Susan’s more of an activist, while I’m more wishy-washy. I lived in the Soviet Union, so my attitude to socialism is not quite the same as Susan’s. I have a great mistrust of ideology.

I feel an immense sense of gratitude to Susan for how she’s enriched my life. An intimate friendship doesn’t depend on proximity, and it exists independently of any other relationship. I don’t care what anyone else thinks about Susan; it won’t affect my view of her.

Words have been at the heart of what we have in common ever since we were kids. We’ve both always turned to words to find some sort of balance in the world, to help us through.

Susan and Richard at Bulli Pass, September 1954.

As you grow older, you become less interested in physical intimacy, and more in emotional intimacy. I feel intimate with Susan. Our friendship is rooted in a feeling of closeness and understanding. No friendship is perfect, and I wouldn’t want to be married to her, but I think ours will go on forever.

Susan: You couldn’t miss Robert as a child. Although he was small, he had a great joie de vivre. We really sparked off each other. And we had a mutual passion for Enid Blyton. I remember us being given an assignment to write and illustrate a little novel. His was all about pirates, with beautiful handwriting and sophisticated drawings of galleons. I was jealous, as my drawings were primitive. We both knew then that we could be good writers: we were the best writers in the class.

We lost touch after school, then met up again in 1993 when I was at a gay and lesbian writing conference with my late partner, Anne. I had been listening to Robert Dessaix on his ABC radio show, Books and Writing, for years, so I went to his session. I was standing at the back, and I looked at this person on the stage, and I thought, “That’s Robert Jones.”

I went up to him afterwards and said, “Robert, I think we might know each other.” He looked at me and said, “Susan,” and I said, “Yes.” Then he said something strange, but rather wonderful: “What would your mother think if she saw me here?” And I said to him, “Robert, it’s okay. She knows I’m here.” She accepted that I was gay, so of course she would have accepted him.

“We had both been married before falling in love with someone of the same sex: me with Anne, him with Peter.”

We stayed in touch, but the friendship developed gradually; it took time to establish the rapport we’d had as children. There were a lot of parallels in our lives. One major one was that we had both been married before falling in love with someone of the same sex: me with Anne, him with Peter. We talked about that quite often; how we had both tried to go down the conventional path, but then, with greater self-knowledge, had “jumped the fence”. I think he felt more traumatised about that than I did; all I cared about was that I had found someone I loved. We were also both writing non-fiction. There’s never been any jealousy between us. He is like a brother to me.

Robert is a loyal friend. In 2001, Anne and I published a book about Broome, Broometime, which some of the locals didn’t like. It caused some controversy and Robert went in to bat for me, writing a supportive letter to the local paper. That was brave. He just gave his honest opinion, and I liked that.

In 2002, my mother took her own life. I talked to Robert about this because he knew her, and he was very empathetic. He is immensely kind, although he doesn’t show that to too many people. Since Anne died, he’s been so considerate, always checking in, making sure I’m okay.

He is always entertaining and honest. He never gives you a compliment unless he means it; even then, not often. He can be a little self-important at times, but he does it with humour. He knows his own foibles.

My life without Robert in it would be nowhere near as rich. The childhood memories are delightful, and the maturing of our friendship into something so special is a great gift.

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