by Bill Condon
‘Your dad and I have decided that it’s best if we separate. For a while.’
Typical Mum. No messing about. She’s the kind of nurse who has the needle in your arm before she even says it won’t hurt. I’ve been expecting this for quite a while but I find I’m still unprepared for it. It still hurts.
‘It’s not going to happen straight away.’ Dad folds his arms. He looks and sounds as if he’s on Death Row ordering his last meal. ‘I have to organise a few things first … We thought we’d just talk it over with you.’
But this isn’t talking it over, it’s laying it on the line – take it or leave it.
Mum closes her eyes as if she doesn’t want to be here. I don’t either, but my face doesn’t change expression. The last thing my parents need is me crying.
Rory wriggles and squirms all through the dreaded talk. It’s hard to know how much actually sinks in. He is eight and living in a bubble where nothing bad ever intrudes. To him that’s real life.
Now, as if he’s been told he can’t have another chocolate, he says, ‘But why?’
It’s a very good question, though if he were my age he wouldn’t bother asking it. There is no chance of a response that makes any sense.
Dad: ‘We need time to think things through.’
Mum: ‘Both of us want some space.’
Complete waffle.
Rory nods as if that’s cleared everything up. I know how his mind works …
Nothing’s changed. That’s Mum and Dad right in front of me. They’re not dying or anything. Okay, they’re separating. Soff It’s no big deal. It’s only for a while, they said. What’s for dinner?
I don’t blame my parents for avoiding the truth, which is that when Dad leaves us, he won’t come back. Like the true reason behind all this, it’s a complication that Rory couldn’t handle. I think that sometimes boys need to believe in their fathers more than they need to hear the truth.
The discussion continues for another five minutes. Mum and Dad assure us that nothing is going to change, apart from the small detail of Dad’s living arrangements. But he’ll be close by, so if we need a father we’ll be able to get one at short notice. And they both still love us. ‘And always will.’
‘When is this going to happen, Dad?’ I ask. ‘Do you know yet?’
He looks at Mum – she’s the organised one, the planner – even as they’re about to split up, he’s still following her lead.
‘In a week or so,’ Mum says. ‘Two at the outside. It’s best for everyone.’
Rory bounces the basketball which I suppose is his way of saying, ‘Okay, let’s wrap this up so I can get in a game before it’s too dark.’ I don’t mean to be unkind to my brother, I love him, but I wish he had more understanding. I wish I didn’t have to go through this alone.
Mum blinks away tears.
Dad makes a mask of his hands and hides behind them.
I’ve seen this moment coming like a train and here I am on the tracks, still not reacting. But afterwards, alone in my room, that’s when the train hits me. That’s when I cry.
I’ve had hurts before, the same as anyone; physical cuts and bruises riding tandem with the wounds from thoughtless and cruel remarks. I learnt to roll with the punches and bounce back. And when I couldn’t it was still okay because I always had Mum and Dad to cushion the falls. Until now. For the first time in my life I can’t go to them. They have their own grief to contend with.
Mum takes out the sewing machine that she hasn’t used in months. She immerses herself in attaching buttons and mending zippers. Buried under the clamour of it. Untouchable.
Through the window I see Dad. He ambles around the garden, stopping here and there to sit next to a tree, perhaps thinking back to barbecues we’ve had or steamy days cooled down by chasing each other with the hose. Near the clothesline, he crouches and tugs at some grass. Once we wrote our names there in wet cement. Later, when he mows the lawn for the second time this week, he turns the throttle up high and clouds of swirling dirt envelop him. Just like Mum with her sewing machine, he’s found a way to disappear.
Now it’s okay for me to share my secret with Glenna and Megan, but I don’t rush to call them. I’ll choose a time when we’re alone and I’ll say it casually, as if I’m so mature and cool that it hasn’t touched me, that it can’t touch me. During this long ordeal I’ve put myself to sleep with pleasant thoughts, memories saved expressly for endless nights. Sometimes pretending is the only way to cope with reality. But there would be no pretence if Megan and Glenna saw me now when everything is so raw and painful. I’d dissolve into a hopeless puddle. Can’t have that. I’m the sensible one, the strong one. I will tell them – but not yet.
Instinctively, I ring Lanny. I need him. Even as I think that, I fight against it. I haven’t got time for boys. I can’t risk being hurt. It’s a fight I lose. When I think of him the feelings well up from deep inside of me. He’s a comfy shoulder, a place to hang my hat.
‘You just missed him, luv.’ Lanny’s mother has the harsh gravelly voice of a smoker. ‘He’s workin’ at the supermarket this arvo. You should catch him there.’
I pause at the door as I’m leaving. Mum sees me and stops sewing. ‘You off somewhere, Caitlin?’
Today her face is stony, in keeping with her quarry heart. I want to hold her tightly so that it hurts both of us. Anything to make her feel. But I don’t. I’ve been turned away too many times to try again.
‘Yes,’ I answer. ‘My mobile will be on if you want me for anything.’
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t think I will.’ Then, eyes cast down, she resumes sewing.
I wait in the bus shelter across the road from the supermarket. If I sit here long enough one of two things will happen: Lanny’s shift will end and he’ll come out, or I’ll find enough courage to go into the shop. I arrive in mid afternoon light and by early evening dark, courage still eludes me. Then I see him, perched on a rail near a loading dock while others light up smokes. I stop caring about what anyone might think and rush across the road. Before I get there he sees me and I don’t need to say a single word.
‘Come with me.’ His hand is in mine. ‘We can talk in the car park.’
He tells me to take my time but the words won’t wait another second.
‘Mum and Dad have broken up. They told us today. Dad will be gone in a week – two at the most. I didn’t think they’d ever really do it. I mean, I knew they would, but I hoped that – oh I don’t know what I mean. It’s a shock, that’s all.’
Up to this point I keep it together, thanks largely to Mum’s practical nurse voice yammering at me. ‘There’s nothing to get emotional about. This happens every day. Little steps, one at a time. You’ll get through it.’
We stop at Lanny’s car and he opens the door for me.
‘Let’s go for a drive. I’ve got petrol this time.’
‘No. Your job,’ I remind him. ‘You can’t leave in the middle of a shift.’
‘Already left.’ He flashes his trademark grin. ‘Plenty of jobs around. Only one Caitlin.’
Bugger little steps. There is something to get emotional about. In the time it takes to get into the car I fall apart. Lanny holds me for a moment, his arms warm and safe. Then we drive. He keeps one hand in mine and the other on the steering wheel. There are no answers and I’m thankful he doesn’t try to make any up. He listens, simply listens. That’s all I need. In front of me I see the Hunny nameplate on the glove box and just when the tears were leaving me, they come back. My home has collapsed and now I’m in a car named after me with a guy who drives off to see me late at night when I need him, who walks away from his job to be with me. It’s almost like I’ve gone from one home to another. And then we park overlooking a pond, only sharing it with a family of ducks. They totter in single file behind their mum along the water’s edge. Dry-eyed now, I become aware of Lanny’s arm around me.
It’s a big moon night; an egg-yolk coloured moon and a black sky. It should b
e the perfect romantic moment but instead of an orchestra playing the way it happens in movies, the ducks start quacking. We both smile at that. I wish I knew what he was thinking. As for me, I want everything, not half – the moon and the orchestra. I tell myself I’m stupid and selfish and unrealistic – and I am all of those. But still, when I look at Lanny long and deep, I can’t find what I’m searching for. Maybe that’s the way it will always be.
‘We should slow down. Okay, Lanny? I’m not sure how I feel.’
I nestle into his chest, hear his racing heart.
‘Slow as you like, Caitlin. There’s no hurry. I’ll always be here.’
Click goes the camera in my mind. Me and Lanny and the moon.
Dad’s mood gradually improves. He even puts on the radio. It’s fossil music – dead and boring – but it helps lift him out of the hole he’s in. His face looks more relaxed. I’m sure mine does too. In a little town off the highway he stops to buy petrol and bottled water for himself, and chips and an ice-cream for me. The shop across the road sells sporting goods. I wait outside eating the ice-cream while Dad goes in, hoping to buy some bait. He emerges a few minutes later with a football.
‘They didn’t have any prawns. But I saw this.’ He passes the ball to me. ‘Thought it would be a good day for a kick. Are you up for it?’
‘Always. Let’s do it.’
We drive around until we find a park, and then it’s on. Dad boots the ball into orbit, or just about. It falls between my hands when I try to catch it. We kick for a while and then run side by side, passing to each other. It’s been so long since we did this that it feels like I’ve gone for a ride in a time machine. As I grew up we must have spent a thousand hours kicking the ball to each other. Dad was always so patient with me. I was a hopeless kicker and catcher, yet he talked to me like I was a champion. I think that’s when I learnt to love him.
I find the camera in my bag.
‘Just one shot, Dad.’
He scans the ground and sees a man walking from the toilets on the other side of the park. We jog over to him and Dad asks the question.
‘Excuse me. Would you mind talking a photo for us? Me and my son.’
We squat down next to each other, the ball in front of us. Dad has an arm around me.
‘There you go,’ says the man. ‘That’s a good photo, that one.’
I look at the image in the camera. It’s not the best picture I’ve ever seen of Dad. It’s too honest. He’s fighting so hard to look cheerful but he doesn’t get close. He looks beat-up inside. Broken beyond fixing. But I know that every time I look at that photo, I’ll feel his arm around me, just as brilliant as it felt a moment ago. I love it.
Red-faced and sweaty, we sit on the grass slurping water under a shady tree. The time machine has taken Dad back, as well as me. We’ve gone to a place where we were closer. I know I can talk to him now.
‘Any idea where we might go fishin’, Dad?’
‘I was thinking about Relay Point. That’s another hundred or so k’s. My father took me there when I was your age. I’ve told you about that trip, haven’t I?’
‘Is that the time when it rained really heavy?’
‘Yes, it rained all right. But there was more to it than that.’
Dad eases his back onto the grass so he’s lying at fullstretch, eases into the words, too.
‘You see, it was my father taking me on a trip. That was really something to me. He’s been dead ten years now but I still think about him. He never leaves me.’
There’s a gap big enough to drive a bus through before he speaks again and when he does his face is softer than before.
‘You wouldn’t remember him, would you. Too young. You must have been five.’
‘I think I remember him. A bit.’
‘In any case, he was old then. Nothing like what he was in his prime.’
He’s left the war with Mum way behind and he’s back with his father – thirty years ago.
‘Barrel chest. Huge slabs of meat, his hands were. And strict. Oh yes. We knew better than to give him any cheek. You’d be on your backside quick-smart … Dad and I were never close. Well no, that’s wrong. We were. I loved him. But it was an unspoken sort of thing. We didn’t communicate very well. Not like you and me – I mean, you know you can come to me with anything, anytime. Right, David?’
‘Sure, I know that.’
‘Any problem and I’ll be there for you. That’s the way it should be. But my father, he wasn’t like that. He was a good man, mind you. Good family man. Don’t get me wrong. But he was remote. You know? That’s the way it was back then. Life was harder. It was a struggle if you had a family. He was always working. Six days a week. Away early, home late. There just wasn’t time for anything else. We couldn’t talk like we are now. I went to New Zealand when I was thirteen with my mother and my brother – your Uncle Kevin. My grandmother lived there and she wasn’t well. Dad had to stay behind for work. He came to the airport to see us off and he … he shook my hand before we left.’ He chuckles to himself but he isn’t smiling.
‘I think that was the only time he ever touched me.’
There’s a sudden crippled look on his face as if the memory is made of barbed wire and he’s run straight into it. He stops for a while as if straddled on the wire, as if it still amazes and hurts him.
‘Yes … the only time. He must have when I was a baby, of course, but in the years I can remember … never made any contact with me. Just that one handshake.’
In a small way, I know how Dad feels. It’s changed a little over the last few months because I seem to have been on his side during the fights. It wasn’t that I was actually choosing sides, more the fact that, for once, he needed me. Mum coped better. She was stronger. One time I saw her take a phone call in the middle of an argument. She forgot about Dad and chatted away happily as if nothing had happened. He took it much harder. Shut himself in his office and kept thinking about what was said long after it was over. I’d go in and find him staring at the wall.
‘How’s it goin’?’ I’d say as brightly as I could. ‘You okay?’
Sometimes he didn’t answer. Sometimes he told me to go away. But always he’d catch up to me later. It would be a tap on the back as I walked past, a mumbled ‘thank you’, or his specialty, a note containing a quote from someone brave or wise. I keep all his scribbled bits of inspiration.
Rather than love, than money,
than fame, give me truth.
When it is dark enough,
you can see the stars.
That was the one good thing about those fights. For a little while I could get close to him.
‘Well, we better get going,’ he says, tossing his water bottle into a bin. ‘Those fish are waiting.’
Once we’re driving again there’s not a word from Dad. He’s lost in his thoughts and so am I. He’s never talked so much about his father before – this man who’s always been a mystery to me. I’ve seen his photos in albums and tried to put myself in the picture. Tried to know him. Always failed. He had the same way of frowning at a camera as Dad has. I pull down the sun visor in front of me and smile into the mirror. I haven’t inherited the family grimace yet, but without much effort I see my grandfather in the mirror, I see Dad … and I wonder how they lost the ability to smile.
Dad is still silently dredging through his past so I throw him a rope – a question – to drag him out.
‘How was that trip? With Grandad. Was it a good place to fish?’
It takes a few seconds for the signals to reach him – he must have been a long way from me – but they do.
‘Let’s see. I don’t know about the fishing part, but the trip … well, you can imagine what it was like for me. Kevin didn’t like fishing and Mum had no interest in going, so it was only the two of us. It was incredible. Having some time with him. Dad had retired not long before and he was ill. I didn’t know that at the time. But yes. He was dying, actually. All those years of smoking and drink
ing caught up to him. So it was very special. We drove all day. And he sang. Booming voice. You know, really … gutsy voice – stirring. Oh, and he told stories like no one else. Things that he’d experienced. Exciting stories. There was no such thing as being bored when you were with my father. I idolised him. He was bigger than life. So it was a wonderful trip. Sunshine all the way. But as soon as we arrived – the very minute – it bucketed down. Torrential. Well, I’d have been happy to get back in the car and drive home. Not my father. He wasn’t one to give up easily. A bit of water was never going to stop him. He used to say – never forget this – ‘Skin is waterproof, boy. Ignore the rain.’ Yes, I can still hear his voice … We fished in a downpour. Freezing cold. Sloshing around in mud. I moaned and griped every second but he didn’t hear a word of it. Hopeless. Ridiculous. And when I look back on it … glorious.’
Dad is peaceful. He’s back at Relay Point in the rain, fishing with his father.
Next second he’s crying.
‘Your gran – Nanna Curtis you called her – she was so different from your mother’s mum. Do you ever think about her?’
It’s a question out of nowhere. He looks straight ahead at the road as the tears flow down his cheeks.
‘Sure. Sometimes.’
‘She was good, wasn’t she? You liked her?’
‘Of course. I loved her, Dad.’
‘My father gave her a terrible time. He was very demanding. Had an awful temper. But that day at Relay he and I were brilliant together. All the barriers were down. He was my dad and I was his son.’
He blinks away the tears and pauses to try to distance himself from the feelings. It doesn’t work. The pain is still in his voice when he speaks again.
‘That day my father said the wrong thing to me. It was some mindless sex joke. He’d never shared anything like it with me before. Probably thought that he was paying me a compliment. His way of welcoming me to manhood. But it was about my mother.’ He pauses and anger builds inside him with every second. ‘There he was, laughing at her with this sick joke and he expected me to laugh too. I hit him in the stomach as hard as I could!’
