Only

by Caroline Baum

  An early adopter, Papa loved countries that forged ahead with new technology. ‘Just look at these superb motorways,’ he would say with unqualified admiration for progress as we sped south along the newly built Autoroute du Soleil, completed, my father marvelled, ‘on time and on budget’. A confirmed believer in borderless Europe, when the Channel Tunnel was launched, he was one of the first to invest in it and drive through when it was completed. In France, my father swapped fault-finding for praise.

  Childhood holidays there brought a rare spate of harmony to our trio, especially during the annual summer break in the south. Every summer on the beach at Cannes, my father shucked off formality, swapping his handmade suits and Hermès ties for casual shirts. Though he rarely swam, he took me out in a paddle boat, pedalling straight for the horizon when my own feet could not reach the treads, and became chief engineer and builder for lavish sandcastles, shovelling sand with purpose, urging me on as his labourer before the tide swept our bridges and forts away. Or the three of us immersed ourselves in our books, side by side under a fringed parasol on our blue-and-white striped mattresses, waiting for the ice-cream vendor to run across the burning sand shouting out flavours (‘Fraise! Vanille! Chocolat!’), a cooler box slung across his tanned shoulders. My father, never able to keep to the shade of the parasol, would invariably burn, his extremities turning lobster red. Though he was supposed to be relaxing, even his reading was violent: he bent books till their spines cracked, his pace furious; he would start and finish a Harold Robbins, Mario Puzo or a Len Deighton in a day, biting his nails non-stop.

  Our daily routines were insular and indolent: the rituals of la plage, la terrasse, le marché, la promenade, la sieste, le restaurant. In late afternoons the air shimmered from the oil of sappy cypress. Dark as olives, Maman and I sluiced our skin in the Mediterranean’s clear azure brine. We ate unwieldly pan bagnat sandwiches of ripe tomatoes in bread soaked in olive oil. Peach and melon juice dribbled down our chins. In the evenings with Papa we dressed up and sat on the balmy terrace of the Carlton or the Majestic, bronzed and polished, stupefied by the sun, watching the world stroll by on the Croisette, ordering elaborate dishes from extravagantly oversize menus that looked like giant books of spells. Under my father’s encouraging and approving gaze, I made bold choices. He beamed with pride at being able to afford the most expensive dishes and best wines, but for my mother the experience was slightly marred by his persistent habit of asking us to guess what the bill came to (in those days, and in those establishments, women were presented with a menu that omitted prices). She was content to be pampered, cosseted and kept in ignorance of what things cost whereas I enjoyed the game, though I was rarely accurate. Leaving a showily generous tip to demonstrate his largesse, my father signalled our departure. Fawned on by bowing waiters, we retired to our suite like potentates, glowing with privilege and satiated satisfaction.

  Three years after the break with my parents, my husband David and I decided to spend three months in France. Ahead of our trip we made tentative contact by phone. The reception was frosty and wary but we persisted with solicitous questions. We mentioned that we would be passing through London and would like to see them. They made non-committal noises. Next, like an old-fashioned emissary sent from an enemy state, David visited them with peace offerings of flowers and chocolates. These were well received. He suggested lunch. They accepted.

  We met on neutral ground at a gastro pub on the river in Bray. We were all nervous. The atmosphere was tense.

  My father had more liver spots than I remembered, his face now dappled with splotches of pigmentation and moles. My mother looked haggard. Conversation was general, stilted and polite. We spent an inordinate amount of time praising the very good bottle of wine my father had brought and steered away from the personal, staying within the safer boundaries of current affairs.

  When it was time to leave, my mother shrank from my embrace, but my father let me take his arm as we walked to our cars. Unable to restrain himself, he told me he did not like what I was wearing. I ignored the comment rather than rising to it.

  Once settled in Nice, we called weekly. Anecdotes about daily life seemed to amuse them and begin a slow, gradual thaw. They laughed at our bafflement over extended lunchtime closing hours and our disgust at the quantities of dog shit on the pavements. Emboldened by the irresistible charm of our waterfront location, which we knew would meet with their exacting approval, we invited them for that ultimate peace-making festivity, Christmas.

  It was a high-risk strategy. Christmas had never been a festive time in our household: being Jewish, my father would have preferred to ignore the date completely and only tolerated token elements of the occasion when I was a child. For most of December, he stewed in a state of bah humbug resentment, joined in surprising solidarity by my mother, who unleashed her Gallic vehemence against everything from street decorations to carols, mince pies, turkey and stuffing. We assured them that our Christmas would provide an escape from all of the excess they despised.

  They accepted tentatively, with conditions. They would not stay with us, they would not stay very long. On the day of their arrival I left a bunch of violets, my mother’s favourites, at their hotel with a note to say we would pick them up for dinner.

  I can only describe what happened over the next five days as a magical alignment. A unique state of grace. Every small pleasure was shared, every delight mutual. We sat in easy conversation in squares bathed in winter sunshine, as if it had never been otherwise. They were keen to explore, enthusiastic about every suggestion, relaxed in surrendering all decision-making. Their amenable, easygoing disposition did not seem forced, as if they were on their best behaviour. Unrecognisably good company, they were like completely charming, urbane acquaintances one wanted to get to know better.

  There was no mention of apology, no blame. No sub-text, no undertow or malaise, no hint of bitter recrimination that might rear up and break this fragile but miraculous truce. It was as if the constantly ticking bomb of our family had been defused.

  We did all the shopping for Christmas lunch in less than an hour. No queues, no fuss. Minimal tinsel. My parents swapped their ritual refrain of complaint for the gentle hum of benign tolerance.

  I cherish the memory of that Christmas as an enduring highlight of my adult life. All too soon, I would need to raid the currency of goodwill banked during those days of reconciliation, drawing urgently on what I would later realise was a life savings account.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 18

  A dutiful daughter

  When I returned to Australia, my role as Good Daughter continued without significant incident or interruption: the French interlude had bought me an extended line of credit. Two years later, my father was diagnosed with bowel cancer and given a fairly optimistic diagnosis subject to an operation.

  I took the news calmly. I soothed my mother’s anxiety and worst fears, downplaying the crisis, making reassuring noises and telling her I would be there to support her.

  We agreed that I would come just in time for the operation. In planning mode, I prepared a mental script for how this episode would play out. I would arrive early on the morning of the day my father was to have the operation to remove a tumour from his bowel, have a cup of tea with my mother and then go to the hospital with her to see my father before he went into surgery, to reassure him all would be well.

  I intended to stay for two weeks, to make barely a dent in my work schedule, and to allow me, for the week leading up to the op, the long-planned treat of a holiday with David and friends at the Adelaide Festival.

  I am, after all, my father’s daughter and have taken responsibility for our group’s logistics: I’ve arranged our accommodation, restaurant bookings and tickets to shows. I want to honour their trust and am already relishing the pleasure of how the components of the week fit into a seamless jigsaw.

  I’ve also inherited my father’s love of anticipation, the way it stretches an occasion’s plea
sure so that it begins weeks or even months earlier. Even though I try to live more in the present than in the future, there are times when having something to look forward to makes everything worthwhile. I love finessing the smallest details to make sure things go smoothly. I may have adapted his high-stress modus operandi over a more relaxed and flexible style, but it’s still a responsibility I prefer not to delegate.

  The Fleurieu Peninsula is a part of the world where I could imagine living. Its plentiful produce—almonds, olives, cherries—reminds me of Provence. Now I will get the chance to introduce friends to a part of the world they don’t know and discover it again through their eyes. This way, I can have my cake and eat it too. Go to the festival and then leave for London. Win win.

  But my plans do not go to plan. Three days before we are due to go to Adelaide, my mother calls to say that the hospital can take my father early: he’s going to have surgery in two days’ time. She is relieved because it saves her another week of anxiety, which has already dominated her life for two months since the diagnosis and because she’ll get a better quality of nursing if they can avoid the Easter holiday period, when some permanent staff are bound to take leave and be replaced by agency personnel.

  I am crestfallen. I can’t fulfil my role as dutiful daughter. I won’t be there when my father wakes up or to hold my mother’s hand as she waits nervously for a call from the hospital to say everything is alright. When I give her the choice between me arriving for the op or when my father is home convalescing, where he will no doubt be a dreadful patient, she chooses the former, though friends tell me I might be of more use later. Damn.

  She puts my father on the phone.

  ‘Hello, Baby,’ he says, sounding weary and frail. ‘Can you come now?’ he asks in a voice I do not recognise. Is that fear I am hearing? I don’t recognise it. I hesitate. I make excuses about breaking work contracts, knowing this is something he understands and values. I play the professional card, which is how he likes me to sound. I am not lying: there is a day’s work wedged into the Adelaide trip, but it is one I could pull out of, citing family circumstances, only I don’t want to.

  ‘Okay,’ he says, caving without argument, ‘just come when you can.’ He is docile with acceptance. Normally he would apply pressure.

  I am wrong-footed by his lack of insistence. He can be so manipulative, so scorchingly sarcastic if he wants to make me feel guilty for not jumping to his every command, but now he sounds as if he’s surrendered to his fate. I agonise over my decision. Should I cancel the Adelaide trip? Heavy hearted, I decide to stick to the original plan.

  In Adelaide, the temperature is over forty degrees for eight days straight, breaking a record. My eyeballs fry after ten minutes on the street, and the hot northerly wind aggravates the feeling of desert-like dehydration, sapping all energy. But the evenings are balmy and the company is stimulating, warm, funny, clever—the very best combination of people and ideas, all charged by being together and arguing with passion about what we like and don’t like about what we see every day and night: ‘Have you been to see the Aboriginal work at the Gallery?’ ‘I hate the way they’ve hung it.’ ‘Don’t forget the museum collection.’ ‘The Jam Factory has a great multimedia show.’ ‘Let’s go to the Persian Gardens tonight.’ ‘Guess who I bumped into from London?’ ‘Why can’t all shows be an hour long?’

  We argue vehemently about Leonard Cohen and a controversial German production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof—does the set overpower the acting? What is the live vulture for? And why are the actors so unsexy when the play is drenched in sex? Over an hour-long walk before the heat of the day sets in, powering by the River Torrens, before a communal breakfast where the opinions are fuelled by feast-like spreads, we never stop asking each other, challenging, interpreting, speculating. It’s heady, intoxicating and fun, a real mental work-out based on trust, respect and relentless, avid curiosity. I feel energised by the group’s enthusiasm.

  One morning I step away from the pack as we are walking by the river to call my mother on my mobile. The operation went well, they seem to have got all of the tumour: ‘The size of a tangerine,’ she tells me, always one for a graphic medical detail. She sounds relieved and upbeat, perhaps charged with adrenalin, proud of having got through it on her own. She took a taxi from the hospital, something she hates to do as she often cannot understand drivers’ accents and worries about not giving the correct tip. She likes the surgeon, the nurses, she remembers their names and feels my father is in capable hands. He’s still very dopey. Now she can get some rest. She says the hospital is more cheerful than she expected, with lots of art on the walls, and that soon my father will have a phone by his bedside so I can call him.

  Relieved, I catch up with the rest of the clan. The next few days are golden, burnished in my memory. In a matter of days, their recollection will help keep me sane: I will cling to snatches of remembered conversation as if my life depended on it.

  For now, I am in a state of ignorance. I assume that it’s possible to give my mother the support she needs at the end of the phone, like a general talking from a remote vantage point to the troops on the front line. Those few minutes first thing in the morning are neatly stowed away, the time difference adding to the convenience of being able to move on swiftly to more hedonistic plans without a guilty conscience. After all, the operation was a success, the worst is over, it is all for the best. My father has the constitution of an ox and a steely will. He is not ready to go and has come through.

  When my mother starts to sound rattled by my father’s post-op behaviour, I am not perturbed and try to downplay her concerns. She tells me that he is ranting, and has become very agitated and abusive towards the nurses, has not slept all night, has wandered the ward disrupting the sleep of other patients. I reassure her that it is simply the after-effects of the anaesthetic, which we have been warned could take up to a week to wear off. She agrees that the nurses have ventured the same opinion, but she is the one who is getting calls in the middle of the night from my father insisting that she come and get him immediately, bringing lots of money, as he is about to be sold or killed by an unnamed enemy. A day later, she is not amused when he calls her by the name of a woman she knows has been his mistress. She says the nurses are pretty fed up with him, as he has kept the ward awake all night with his ravings. I tell her to just hang on, stay calm, not react and that I will be there soon. She sounds unconvinced.

  I know the real ordeal for her will begin when he comes home and starts bossing us around, refusing to follow medical advice and unwilling to adopt new recommendations on diet, exercise or safeguarding his well-being. He has been a bitter, angry, disappointed man for a long, long time and that is not going to change. He has also shown a stubborn disregard for his physical self, as if he and his body were entirely disconnected. The cancer scare will have taught him nothing, the reprieve he has gained will not alter his perspective. I have suspected him of suffering from clinical depression for some time, and urged my mother to get him some help, but she has been more preoccupied with his physical symptoms of high blood pressure, general bad temper and forgetfulness to pay attention to a problem she does not fully recognise or understand.

  All this is the backdrop to our conversations, during which I try to maintain the voice of a supportive, sympathetic but slightly detached counsellor in an attempt to calm my mother’s rising alarm. Do I sound condescending? Bossy? Probably.

  If I were there in person there is not much more I could do, I tell myself, but really, who am I kidding? The difference is she would not be walking into and out of the ward on her own with her emotions in tatters. She would not be coming home alone to an empty flat where there is no one to make her the all-consoling cup of tea and to help her debrief and unload, to cook her some dinner when she is too tired to make it for herself, and to chivvy her into watching something distracting on television. I am a bad daughter because I am not there, my heart hardened by my selfish priorities; any arguments I might of
fer to the contrary are self-serving.

  Nagging at my innards is my biggest fear: what if I don’t love him enough to take care of him? I know that I have limited patience at the best of times, but the history of conflict with my father is so complex and protracted and I have felt so little real love for him for some time that I think it might make me an unsuitable carer. I am afraid of that showing, afraid of the ugliness I feel it betrays in my soul, ashamed of feeling so little generosity in my heart.

  I unburden myself to my friend Sean, who recently spent time by his father’s side during his final weeks after a lifetime of virtual estrangement far more extreme than mine. In the end, he says, you forget about all that stuff, all the resentment, the grievances, the wrongs and hurts, and you just see a sick old man. You can’t feel any anger towards someone who is as helpless as a child. Prophetic, wise words that I mull over on the flight to London, guilt-ridden for not going sooner to my mother’s side.

  CHAPTER 19

  April

  If irony is your thing, then I guess there is some irony in the fact that we took my father home on Good Friday. He was far from resurrected, though his wound had healed, the scar and neat stitching mending tidily.

  When we came to the hospital to fetch him, he was asleep in a chair by his bed. A long drool of saliva was falling from his lips, which my mother wiped away briskly with a corner of a sheet. ‘The medication makes him dribble,’ she explained, quickly making an excuse for his loss of dignity.

  I had never seen my father so dishevelled. It took quite some prodding to get him to wake from a very deep sleep—so much so that initially I thought he might be dead. I was just about to call for help when he eventually raised his head, still without opening his eyes, as if only semi-conscious. We assumed his dopiness must be due to the lingering after-effects of the anaesthetic.